High school jobs: Impact differs for whites and minorities

ANN ARBOR-African-American and Hispanic students are less likely than whites to work part-time in high school, according to a University of Michigan study. But those who do hold jobs tend to work longer hours, and are less likely to suffer negative consequences. Those are among the findings of a new analysis of data on nearly 600,000 10thand 12th-grade students, collected between 1991 and 2010 as part of the Monitoring the Future Study conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research. The analysis was published online in Developmental Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association. Monitoring the Future is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health. "Working more than 15 hours a week is associated with problems for most students," said ISR researcher Jerald Bachman, the study's lead author. "These include lower grades and higher use of cigarettes, alcohol, and illicit drugs.