The University of Wisconsin–Madison began scaling back work schedules for student employees this semester, limiting them to no more than 29 hours a week.

It’s not going well. “With less hours, many students will have to juggle two jobs, and that will definitely hurt undergraduate success,” one student worker recently told the Madison Capital Times.

Stressed students have Obamacare to thank, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

The health-care law requires large employers like the university to provide basic health care to employees working an average of 30 hours a week or more. The change in campus policy, announced in an email in July, means the university will not have to provide health care to its student employees and nonstudents working part time.

… A spokesman for the university, John Lucas, told the newspaper in an email that the institution did not have the ability to provide student employees with health insurance under state law, and that most students are covered under their parents’ insurance or the university’s student health-insurance plan. However, he added, the university is “concerned about the hours cutback” because many students rely on the pay to defray educational costs.


Before Obamacare, the roughly 15,000 student employees were free to work as many as 40 hours a week on campus. 

This is yet another example of how the health law and its myriad unintended consequences disproportionately disadvantage America’s youth.