The idea of being student workers in 2025 now looks unavoidable. Tuition fees for even a not-so-high-reputation university are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, education is still perceived as a way to improve somebody’s standard of living. Without education, people can hardly get formal jobs that offer a minimum wage and the chance to achieve, at least, a middle-class standard of living.
Therefore, based on the research by El Hamra and Archianingsih in 2024, students see the possibility of working as student workers. The idea is for students to still go to school while getting a part-time job that gives them pocket money to survive. The idea sounds noble, but isn’t it as noble as we thought?
Student Workers In A Positive Perspective
Being a student worker can give students a chance to learn to run a dual role. Aris Dharmawan (2024) noted that this dual role helps students transform from inexperienced teenagers into competent adults. Surely, the students will face difficulties. Yet, the difficulties that students face are opportunities to learn from reality. Students who do this dual role will grow mentally faster compared to their peers who do not get constant pressure
The dual role is, simultaneously, a way for students to build connections before they compete in the job market. The job market itself is ironic, since it treats education as the prerequisite before someone can formally be accepted into a role. Yet, at the same time, employers don’t want someone without experience or the basic skills needed. Even a normal training program can be something employers avoid entirely.
A student worker would be an ideal fit for a company after they formally earn their diploma. They would stand out compared to other applicants.
Negative Perspective of Student Workers
However, being a worker is not a training session. It is the real world with unpredictable burdens or even situations with no escape. Students cannot control their surroundings, and they often end up in a stressful situation.
The level of issues can vary from anxiety to depression. The burden is even worse when students have to carry their family’s financial burden.
The main idea of being student workers is to earn pocket money and extra cash so students can go on holiday or buy their own phone. The reality is far from that, since the students are pushed into it because their families cannot pay their tuition fees. Even worse, families ask students for money, making the situation even more complex.
Student workers are treated as the family’s breadwinners, and it is actually negative news. Yet, sadly, in Indonesia, we will have more student workers soon since formal job opportunities are more limited and young people have no choice but to do the dual role.
Regulations and Empowerment
Employers are not concerned about taking on student workers; they are actually happy with this new group since employers need someone who can be paid less than the usual workers and work part-time. However, it does not mean that the government should let this group operate unregulated.
On the contrary, the government is under pressure to regulate this group so it does not turn into a system of human exploitation. Regulations should specify what kinds of jobs students are allowed to do, what the minimum wage is, and how students can still protect their rights so they are not distracted from their main duty to study.
Moreover, the government should see this phenomenon carefully. The more students who are no longer focusing on being full-time students, the more we should be alarmed by the possibility of fewer full-time students; maybe we have an unsustainable economic system that gives less chance for education to bloom with the advancement of modernity, but instead pushes it into a survival mode.
