Introduction. There are more working students in Russia than non-working ones, but studies alongside employment are mainly due to the focus on earnings, not on professional and personal growth. The research purpose is to establish differences between working and non-working students in a number of personal parameters, the change of which can affect the atmosphere in society. Materials and methods. The sample consisted of 153 students from Moscow universities. Types of personality orientation, altruism, life position and the degree of adequacy of life perception, empathy were studied. The method of psychological testing was used, as well as the following four techniques: personality orientation test by B. Bass; diagnostics of "altruism/egoism" personal orientation; graphic test "Spider, Web, Victim" by N. Dia; polycommunicative empathy test by I.M. Yusupov. Mathematical and statistical methods were used: Student's t-test, correlation analysis (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient). Results. It has been established that the orientation towards work dominates in the sample, while its indicator in the group of working students is lower than in the group of non-working students and in the total sample (t = 2.775 at p = 0.007), while the indicator of orientation towards communication is higher. In the group of working students, the proportion of altruists was about 8%, in the group of non-working students it was 20%; however, in the group of working students, the proportion of true altruists is higher. In the group of working students, there are fewer activists in life (about 46%) than in the group of non-working students (56%), while in the group of working students there are much more of those who are in the position of “victim” (about 27% versus 16%). In the group of working students, the proportion of people with a high degree of adequacy of life perception is about 58%, in the group of non-working students – more than 61%. Discussion and conclusion. It has been established that working students are less “businesslike”, but more “sociable” (“spread themselves too thin”) and empathic, more often feel like a “victim” and have a relatively lower degree of adequacy of life perception. Non-working students have lost their main condition for minimizing the identified undesirable differences with working classmates – group communication in the classroom.