The State Public Interest Research Groups Higher Education Project is using the report's findings to build a case for increased federal financial aid.
The report, which is based on data from the U.S. Department of Education's survey on aid for college students, evaluated the different effects of working hours on students.
The state PIRGs, an alliance of nonprofit public-interest advocacy groups, stated in the report that 46 percent of full-time students who are employed work more than 25 hours a week.
The report states that 25 hours seems to be the point at which work starts to affect grades. Of the students working more than 25 hours a week, 42 percent claimed that work has negatively affected their grades in school.
The report also found that 63 percent of the students who worked more than 25 hours said that they would be unable to afford attending the school they were currently enrolled in unless they worked outside jobs.
Tracey King, spokeswoman of the state PIRGs, said federal financial aid is not keeping up with the costs of attending college. "For example, over the past 25 years the Pell Grant has gone from covering 84 percent of tuition to 39 percent," she said.
King added that additional funding for financial aid will be tough to come by because of tight budgets.
"Higher education is being cut and tuition is rising as a result," she said.
She said heavy student workloads also carry other negative effects, such as problems scheduling classes and accessing library resources.
