- Parents who are footing more of the college tuition bill for their children give them a better chance of graduating. But a surprising new study finds they may not be doing them any favors in another area — generous financial support appears to lead to lower grades.
The study, published in this month's American Sociological Review,
suggests students with some of their own "skin in the game" may work
harder, and that students with parents picking up more of the tab are
free to take on a more active social and extracurricular life. That may
be fun and even worthwhile, but comes at a cost to GPA.
"It allows for a lot of other activities in college that aren't
academic," said author Laura Hamilton of the University of California,
Merced. "Participation in the social scene is expensive — money to hang
out, drink." But "the more you have all these extras, the more you can
get dragged into the party scene, and that will drag down your GPA."
The study is based on figures from three large federal data sets that
allow parental contributions and grades to be compared. Hamilton
controlled for family socio-economic status, allowing a comparison of
similar students whose families make different choices about how much of
the cost of college to pick up.
The effect on GPA is relatively small, Hamilton said. "The reason it
was so shocking, however, is that all the research on parental
investments from pre-school through (college) assumes you give something
to your kids, particularly money, it leads to good things. This is one
case where it not only doesn't have the expected good effect, it has a
small negative effect."
When parents pick up greater absolute amounts and shares of college
costs, it affects GPA across the income distribution, though the effect
is steepest at families earning over $90,000. At that level, and
controlling for other factors, parents not giving their children any aid
predicts a GPA of 3.15. At $16,000 in aid, GPA drops under 3.0. At
$40,000, it hits 2.95.
While rich families obviously find it easier to contribute, poorer
families do as well, at greater sacrifice. But Hamilton says the damage
may be greater for those families, because lower GPAs don't hurt
better-off students as much in the job market. Wealthier students can
rely on connections and further help from parents.
Students without those connections "have to have the 3.0 in order to pass the initial resume glance," she said.
Hamilton found grants, scholarships, work-study, student employment
and veterans benefits don't have similar negative effects on GPA, though
loans do, along with direct parental aid. She suggests that's because
loans and unconditional parental grants have no immediate strings
attached, whereas scholarships and grants often carry GPA requirements.
There may also be a psychological effect. With grants, "students feel
like they've earned them in some way" and want to justify them.
Hamilton said the findings don't suggest parents should stop
supporting students financially, especially considering there is a
larger positive effect on graduation rates than the negative effect on
GPA. But they should lay out standards and expectations. And even if
parents can afford the whole bill, it may be worthwhile to make students
put up some of their own funds, or work part-time, so they feel
invested.
In her broader research on the topic, Hamilton says she's found some
parents signal it's OK to take advantage of their support for a more
social experience.
"Some parents were 100 percent complicit in this," she said. "They
absolutely wanted their children to go to school and party hard. They
told me explicitly it's not about grades, it's about having fun, the
best years of your life."
"Now for some families it all works out OK," she said. "The 'best
years of your life' idea has trickled down to what everybody thinks
college should be. But not everybody can afford for college to be like
that. And they pay for that for a long time."
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