The benefits of having a job

It is 6:40 p.m. on a Tuesday. One student is writing an English essay, and another is bagging groceries at McCaffrey’s. Both go to Princeton High School. Both have tests tomorrow. But only one is getting paid $15.49 an hour and learning how to handle a line of 20 customers before the shift ends.

These scenes, playing out across America every weekday evening, expose a fundamental disconnect in how we think about teenage development. While education leaders debate apprenticeships and career pathways, they’ve largely ignored the millions of students already bridging the gap between classroom and workplace every day.

Statistics reveal a troubling trend: teen employment has plummeted from 60 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds in 1979 to just 36.9 percent today, with projections showing it could drop even further in the future. The U.S. Department of Labor attributes this decline partly to “increasing academic demands” and the fact that “high school coursework has become more strenuous.”

For high schoolers who work, school is just one part of the day — and sometimes the easier part. Time management is not just a bullet point on a resume anymore; it is a skill you sharpen at a cash register or in the back of a kitchen, while juggling shift changes and deadlines.

In fact, working during high school not only teaches you things that school doesn’t, but it also reinforces skills used in academic settings, such as responsibility, resilience, and problem solving. According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, “Youth — especially those who are black, Hispanic or economically disadvantaged — who have some employment experience while in school are less likely to drop out than those who do not.” Critics worry that working students sacrifice their education, but this assumes that sitting in a classroom is always more valuable than learning through experience. However, the key isn’t whether students should work or not, but how they manage the balance.

“If I hear a student saying they’re not sleeping and look tired, I tell them to dial back. Your mental health isn’t worth it,” said PHS college counselor Nipurna Shah.

Matthew Ocampo ’27, a boys varsity wrestler, works at a local coding institute — the same place where he first learned programming. Ocampo has learned to navigate competing demands with strategic thinking and problem solving skills.

“I only go on weekends. If I have a sports meet, I let my boss know and shift things around,” said Ocampo. “I don’t really feel burnt out — I can usually feel good.”

The ability to coordinate work, athletics, and academics demonstrates exactly the kind of executive functioning skills that students should develop in their formative years. Yet, we often keep ourselves exclusively to the classroom; it’s important to also work on the concrete skills that will determine our successes later on.

High school students who work aren’t falling behind — they’re getting ahead. They’re learning time management not as a theoretical concept but as a daily necessity. They’re developing communication skills not through roleplaying exercises but through real interactions with real consequences. Yes, balance matters. But the idea that academic work is inherently more valuable than paid work is outdated thinking that doesn’t serve our students well.