Students earn an average 5 thousand euro a year

Students in Dutch higher education earned an average 5,250 euro in 2008, either through a job or through their own company. Students in higher professional education (hbo) earned 5,700 euro on average; this is 1,100 more than university students.

Average earnings of students in higher education, 2008

Hbo students earn more than university students

Students in higher professional education (hbo) earn more on average than university students. This is because relatively more of them have a job, they work for more hours a week and for more weeks per year. In 2008, 83 percent of university students had a job, compared with nearly 92 percent of hbo students.

Students work 2 to 3 days per week

Older students work more hours and also receive higher wages than younger students. When starting out, students have jobs of an average 13 hours a week in the period that they work. In the course of their studies, this rises to 23 hours a week for students aged 24 years. Their earnings rise from just under 3,200 euro per year for 19 year-olds, to 6,500 euro for 24 year-olds. In addition to regular small jobs for a few hours a week, student jobs are mostly for short periods and with flexible hours.

Hours worked per working week by students in higher education, 2008

Shops and hotels and restaurants favourite

Jobs in shops and in cafes and restaurants are still the most popular ways for students to earn money. This is certainly the case for students under 22 years of age: 14 percent of them work as shop assistants, and 11 percent wait at table. For older students, these traditional student jobs begin to make way for more study-related jobs. More older students start teaching, for example, or work as IT programmers or in administrative jobs.

Ten most popular student jobs, 2008

Reinder Lok and Clemens Siermann