Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Community college students in Los Angeles who balance work and school face an array of difficult barriers: housing insecurities, mental health hurdles, inadequate financial aid, and parenting stress, among others. These inequities were only exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student Balancing Act: Worker and Learner Experiences in Los Angeles’ Community Colleges analyzes the experiences of Los Angeles County community college students who attend school and who work. For this analysis, the authors subsetted the data of 391 survey responses and nine interviews collected from community college workers and learners and featured in the UCLA Labor Center and Dolores Huerta Labor Institute (DHLI) report Unseen Costs: The Experiences of Workers and Learners in Los Angeles County.