Greater Parental Contributions = Lower Grades

Parents Forum
1

<p>A lot of food for thought in this research:</p>

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Inside</a> Higher Ed: Spoiled Children:</p>

<p>Much discussion about higher education assumes that the children of wealthy parents have all the advantages, and they certainly have many. But a new study reveals an area where they may be at a disadvantage. The study found that the more money (in total and as a share of total college costs) that parents provide for higher education, the lower the grades their children earn.</p>

<p>The findings -- particularly grouped with other work by the researcher who made them -- suggest that the students least likely to excel are those who receive essentially blank checks for college expenses.</p>

<p>The study -- "More Is More or More Is Less?" -- is by Laura Hamilton, an assistant professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at the University of California at Merced, and was just published by the American Sociological Review (abstract available here</a>), the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association.</p>

<p>Hamilton used data from three longitudinal federal databases -- the Baccalaureate and Beyond Study, the Beginning Postsecondary Students Study, and the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. And she compared parental contributions and grades. Significantly, she also controlled for factors such as parental socioeconomic status. She argues in the paper that high wealth levels are associated with higher parental financial contributions, but also with other factors that contribute to academic performance (such as better high school educations, high aspirations for higher education, and so forth). Without controlling for socioeconomic status, those other factors may mask differences in patterns based solely on parental financial contributions.</p>

<p>And here she found -- across all types of four-year institutions -- the greater parental contributions were, the lower the student grades were...

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2

<p>Weren’t there already four threads on the same topic, now merged into one?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1447000-study-finds-increased-parental-support-college-results-lower-grades.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1447000-study-finds-increased-parental-support-college-results-lower-grades.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>I don’t agree. Not all students who have parents footing the bill are ungrateful, spoiled brats who view their college education as merely a paid 4 year vacation. In my opinion, it’s more bad parenting or low ambition/determination/drive by the students which are the root cause.</p>

4

<p>It could be that wealthier parents are more likely to enable marginal students to go to college, while the marginal students from poor families just do not go.</p>

5

<p>It could also be that the kids whose parents can not or will not help have to look for schools with merit aid, and the school they attend is less competitive. Instead of a 3.5 at NYU, they are getting a 3.8 at Podunk U.</p>

6

<p>There are several threads on this article. Merging them might be helpful</p>

7

<p>In my personal experience with my DD I have found this not to be true. We are paying the full cost of college, she pays for her personal expenses earned from her summer job. She is getting better grades in college than in high school, she works her little behind off and has a 3.8. She is trying hard to graduate in 4 years with her Master’s degree so she can take some graduate courses at the undergrad rate so it is less expensive for us. She has taken 20 credit hours the last two semesters. I think she doesn’t fit the profile.</p>

8

<p>I agree that many kids are very grateful that they’re parents are paying.</p>

<p>That said, there are some spoiled kids out there just wasting the folks’ money. They’re one of the reasons that the saying “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations” was coined.</p>