Time-Poverty and the Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Student in Higher Education

Introduction

Time-poverty, at its core, is the concept that time is a resource to which some people have more access. Time-poverty is an issue that affects the majority of students in higher education, particularly those who work, participate in sports, have dis/abilities that affect time management or use, who speak more than one language, or care for family members, to name only a handful of examples (Amano et al., 2023; Wood, 2017, Burston, 2017; Carillo, 2021; Fox et al., 2022, Bachman & Boes, 2014; Lovett, 2010). The issue of time-poverty also disproportionately affects socioeconomically vulnerable students, particularly those at the intersections of this vulnerability and other identifiers that affect time use, such as those mentioned above. Yet, there is little research suggesting practical ways to mitigate time-poverty in the classroom. In this chapter, I will argue that reducing the amount of out-of-class time that students are required to dedicate to coursework without sacrificing their learning experience is a feasible way to begin to reduce student time poverty and I will provide a variety of ways to go about minimizing out-of-class-time expenditure. First, however, it is important to consider the importance of addressing time-poverty in higher education.

For many socioeconomically vulnerable students, participation in sports is the only feasible way to attend college with minimal student debt (Post et al., 2019; Shah et al., 2022). Therefore, if a student athlete in this situation loses their athlete status, they may lose access to higher education. Socioeconomically vulnerable students with dis/abilities often have access to fewer of the interventions that may make up for time-poverty (Shogren et al., 2018; Tinklin & Hall, 1999; Fox et al., 2022). Students from socioeconomically vulnerable families experience fewer transfers of money and monetary benefits than their socioeconomically secure peers, affecting their decisions about time spent working or on other activities (Bachman & Boes, 2014; Kane & Rouse, 1999) while also often depending on the support of educational institutions for addressing basic needs (Bergdahl et al., 2022). A focus on time, in this case, is not meant to take focus away from other aspects of student identity that contribute to systemic indicators of socioeconomic status. Instead, this article is written with an emphasis on the needs of students of color, students with dis/abilities, students from minoritized populations, and incarcerated students, with acknowledgement as to where these identities tend to overlap or intersect to further exacerbate time poverty.

A recent study by Amano et al. (2023) found that individuals working in STEM fields for whom English is not their first language spend significantly more time to conduct research than their peers who are working on research in their first language. And, finally, students who care for children or for sick/elderly family members report greater time-poverty which can be exacerbated when these students lack the means to pay for assistance (Conway et al. 2021; Wladis et al., 2018, Wladis et al., 2023; Bingham, 2014).