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A second pattern Hamilton discovered in that study of one dormitory (and that she believes is the case nationally) is that the lowest grades were earned by children whose parents essentially supported them without much discussion of student responsibilities. The negative impact of high levels of parental financial support was mitigated or eliminated by parents who set clear expectations for their children about grades, graduating on time or other issues, she said.
<p>I wonder if financial support from the government or colleges has a similar effect. Parents can create their own "merit aid" by conditioning financial support on academic performance, but a rigid use of college GPA could encourage a student to take easier courses in an easier major.</p>
<p>I am skeptical. One dormitory was studied? You need a lot more data than that. Every single study I’ve seen regarding educational outcomes that have used a lot of data have shown that children from higher economic level familes do better. Money vs educational outcomes is directly linked when it comes to families and students.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons for dropping out of college is lack of money.</p>
<p>That is the theory, but usually the motivation is hard to come by. The kids who were so bent on partying and not working could care less about the skin they had in the game.</p>
<p>My experience would be similar. Of course not EVERY student was like that, but I would say that MOST kids who’s parents were footing 100% of the bill with no expectations from the child either didn’t work very hard or took their time getting through college, usually with pretty useless majors.</p>
<p>Couldn’t the study be skewed by the criteria used to admit each of those students? If this isn’t a top college, it’s possible that full pay students are more readily admitted than those who need substantial financial aid. Those students who didn’t have financial support from their parents may have been harder working and higher achieving high school students. If those students received scholarships, then they may need to maintain a certain GPA in order to keep the scholarships. While I also think that it’s ridiculous to base a study on the findings in one dorm at one college, I think it’s entirely possible that the findings could be similar in a broader study.</p>
<p>Discuss the importance of grades with your children.</p>
<p>Avoid the Greek system:
</p>
<p>Some parents seem to expect their children to party during college. We can’t assume all parents are obsessed about their children’s GPA. Some will be more concerned about their performance on the college’s varsity team.</p>
<p>Does the study take the effect of minimum GPA limits for scholarships on student behavior? Does it make into account different grading practices by major? An engineering student might have a lower GPA than an education major, but that doesn’t mean the lower grades arose from parental support.</p>
<p>The study does not rely on a single dorm. People who read a short account of a study and think the study is fishy ought to read the longer account, which says this:</p>
<p>I can run through the girls who were on my dorm floor and I know who was full pay, who was on fin aid. I can tell your right off that the ones who were full pay did better as a group. First of all, most of them came from rigorus schools where they were very well prepared. Only one full pay did not make it through the school–and actually did go back to another school a few years later, and ended up with a PHD. Two of the ones on financial aid did graduate with honors of some sort. We won’t even get into career success. The ones from the better families, are the ones who are stinkng rich, though none of us are hurting that made it through. Or for those I know, who did not make it thorugh that school.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse–and what were the expectations of those families-that is what the study is really talking about. I know plenty of kids that were full pay but parents put expectations on those funds too. The kids that had not expectations were the ones that partied too much, switched majors like underwear, and took 5-6 years to “graduate”-when most were done in 4.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call a known “party dorm” a random sample of women. </p>
<p>Does FERPA come into this? If a student might lose a scholarship if the GPA falls below a certain level, someone’s paying attention to the GPA. Whereas I could well believe some full-pay parents don’t receive grade reports as a matter of course. It would be interesting to compare families which do monitor grades to families which don’t.</p>
<p>I think this is the crux of the issue, not parental support. Our son knows that we will pay his expenses as long as he is doing well in school and keeps his scholarship. If he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain then all bets are off. We also told him that since we are paying we expect to see his grades each semester. </p>
<p>He has only been in school one semester and has done very well despite being a varsity athlete and pledging a fraternity. Hopefully, it will continue.</p>
<p>Edited to add: I do think there are some rich kids who are just expected to go to college and get a degree regardless of how well they do. My son has a friend who fits that description. He will be employed by his father’s company when he graduates. He just needs to graduate.</p>
<p>Based on the experiences of my full-pay kids and their friends, many of whom were also full-pay, I question whether the researcher’s conclusions are applicable to other situations and other schools. I would like to see a larger body of evidence on this point.</p>
<p>On the other hand, although my husband and I didn’t give our kids explicit requirements to meet, it was understood that they were expected to take college seriously, and they had their own expectations as well. I suspect that this was true for many of their friends, too, although in general, the parents did not say anything like “If your GPA drops below 3.5, we stop paying.” Perhaps implicit expectations are enough. Perhaps coming from a family where there have always been expectations that you will take school seriously is enough.</p>
<p>If such were cut back, then the student population would be even more skewed toward to students who have high levels of parental financial support, since many of those with low levels of parental financial support would not be able to afford four year college at all.</p>
<p>Also note that the dorm / residential college experience is itself not necessarily representative of the entire college student population, much of which commutes to community college or local state universities.</p>
<p>Seriously, my kids went to a high school where practically all of the kids came from families that were full pay. They have sterling records in terms of college completion and accomplishments. The old prep schools are no longer guaranteeing entry to HPY but they will say with certainly that nearly all of their kids are well prepared for college and are successful there. So it goes with any of the high schools where the bulk of the famiiies will be paying fully for their kids colleges. Compare those completion rate with high schools where most of the kids will be on financial aid. Big difference. I don’t think that survey is correct except in certain specialized well defined circumstances.</p>
<p>Laura Padilla Walker, Larry J Nelson, Jason Carroll (2012). Affording Emerging Adulthood: Parents’ Financial Involvement With Their Emerging Adult Children. Journal of Adult Development .</p>
<p>What do the studies on helicopter parents say?</p>
<p>BTW, do drinking, binge drinking, marijuana use, etc. mean that the student can’t get a great education and have a great career? Could the social aspects actually result in people doing great things?</p>