<p>My youngest has plenty of self respect. The problem is that she is one of those people who is going to be successful and it’s easy to see. Even her teachers were never any help. I’d say, “But don’t you think she should _______?” “Oh, I’m not worried about poetdaughter2, she will be fine. Whenever I need the kids to do something, I just tell her and she makes it happen.”</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>My D has worked very hard in high school to maintain top grades and thus feels she has something invested in the scholarships she is getting. She is getting a lot funded through scholarships, but even so, I think we may have her pay for some of the leftover through a small loan (maybe even from us). That way she will also have some skin in the game (and it may teach some valuable lessons about loans in the future.)</p>
<p>We have been lucky to not have to resort to monetary incentives for grades … chores are another matter entirely.</p>
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<p>My link was to a real leader at Microsoft.</p>
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<p>Well, grades aren’t the end-all to life though they can be important in some areas.</p>
<p>My kids’ college grades so far have been fine. They both had/have partial scholarships and don’t have loans or work study. Daughter has always been internally motivated to get good grades, son is doing better in college than high school, I think because he is studying what he likes. I don’t really care about what studies say, I care about what goes on in my household. Youngest who is a HS senior may end up full pay somewhere, I have no worries other than she may get too stressed out when she gets her first B.</p>
<p>The concept of my parents giving me money for grades seems as ludicrous as is does awesome. We got ice cream a few times when we were in elementary school and got good marks, but it was more a celebration after the fact than a reward we’d worked for with prior knowledge, and I went to a Montessori school so grades didn’t really matter. After age 8 or so, there were pretty much never celebrations for grades.</p>
<p>A friend of mine had a somewhat unfair situation growing up. Her sisters, who always got lower grades than she did, would get rewards for a report card with many B’s, while she would get privileges taken away for coming home with the same grades.</p>
<p>"Parents saving for college costs, take heed: A new national study has found that the more college money parents provide — whether in absolute terms or as a share of total costs — the lower their children’s college grades. "</p>
<p><a href=“Parents’ Financial Support Linked to College Grades - The New York Times”>Parents’ Financial Support Linked to College Grades - The New York Times;
<p>I think it’s possible that the study’s author is looking at the data a bit backwards in that students who can depend on full financial support from their parents have the ability to attend the most competitive school to which they’re admitted, while students who have financial need often depend on merit scholarships to make college affordable. At a mid-level school it’s likely that the best students coming in are those with financial need who chose the school because, having grades and score in the top percentiles of those admitted, they qualify for substantial merit aid. </p>
<p>Note that, according to the author, “The negative impact on grades was less at elite institutions than at other private, expensive, out-of-state colleges.” The Ivies and NESCAC schools (such as Williams and Amherst) provide financial aid solely based on financial need. They don’t have merit scholarships, and are very generous with need-based aid, so there is less likely to be a disparity between the caliber of full pay and scholarship students.</p>
<p>There are three other threads in the Parents Forum about that article - perhaps they can be merged?:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1447146-parental-contributions-linked-grades.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1447146-parental-contributions-linked-grades.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1446769-financial-support-parents-can-cause-lower-college-grades.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1446769-financial-support-parents-can-cause-lower-college-grades.html</a></p>
<p><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</a></p>
<p>Our experience differed - three kids, lots of parental support, good academic progress. We did talk to our kids frequently about expectations and financial limits.</p>
<p>By the time kids are of age to attend college, I would hope that they understand that good grades = internship = job offer = student loans paid off faster.</p>
<p>We pay for most of our kids college, but all three have or will have, student loans. We sat down with each one when they were making their final decisions and they figured out approximately how much their loans would be for attending each college.</p>
<p>I am a fan of paying for good grades - kind of like a real job - you do well, you get paid! My D was always getting the grades but after the first year of this pay program (maybe 7th grade) she quit collecting - I brought it up to remind her and she seemed not to care…weird kid! She still got the grades in HS - having an adjustment in college - no pay for grades now - the tuition is the pay!</p>
<p>^ Thanks, frazzled1, will merge the threads.</p>
<p>Edited to update:
Four threads on this topic have been merged. The original thread linked to an article in Inside Higher Ed, and the next day there was a related article in the New York Times.</p>
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<p>Well, DUH, you’ve got lots of full-pay partiers who don’t take school seriously when you survey a “party dorm” at a relatively less-selective school. If they were more serious students in the first place, with their family resources they might have been at better schools. In other news, rich kids from the Midwest at Arizona State report high levels of fun-in-the-sun.</p>
<p>Count me among the skeptics. While my kids definitely had some “skin in the game”, expected to get merit scholarships, work summers and part-time at school, and pay for personal expenses and, depending on the school, take out loans, they certainly had minimal financial pressure. In the NY Times article, the author is cited as saying that the effect is significant, but small. The level of significance and the strength of the effect are not reported.</p>
<p>Certainly, there are plenty of kids with wealthy or not so wealthy parents who send them to high expense private colleges where the kids major in having a good time more than in getting a good education. As discussed in the merit scholarship thread, many high stats kids end up with merit scholarships (which they may not need financially) so those kids are probably not in the “full pay parents” group. She says she controlled for socio-economic level of the families, but not how this affected the groupings. Does she count kids that have scholarships or small loans as “not full pay”?</p>
<p>The author also notes that students without parental financial support tend to drop out at higher rates. Thus, they may not take the higher level, more challenging courses which may cause kids to get lower grades. </p>
<p>As others have said, major may make a difference as well.</p>
<p>As adults, college students should have some financial responsibility during their college years. Whether or not this study is a valid reflection of that is not clear.</p>
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What this suggests to me is that kids who were good students with good work habits in high school are likely to continue to be the same way in college. I’ll bet the “negative impact” would also be less in honors programs at public universities.</p>
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<p>It would be very interesting if the data could be separated out that way. I think Hunt is correct, a motivated student who can get into honors programs or elite institutions might not be inclined to slack off suddenly because they are being fully funded by their parents.</p>
<p>I would be interested too in a study (if it’s even possible) that looks at the advantages kids get by taking plum, summer internships which are unpaid while their parents pay for their living expenses versus kids who have to take more menial put paying jobs over the summer.</p>
<p>Also, mea culpa, I’m sorry I started another identical thread after this one. I thought scanned the new topics carefully, but obviously I did not. Tried to let it die as quickly as possibly by not posting my apology there.</p>
<p>Study finds that increased parental support for college results in lower grades: gee, another parenting lesson that I flunked. H and I fully supported D while she was in college (except for her merit scholarship).</p>
<p>But wait: she graduated summa with all kinds of departmental honors and is currently employed in her field of study. Like kelsmom’s D, she has thanked H and me profusely for our support (and for the gift of no college loans.)</p>
<p>Maybe if she had had some skin in the game, she wouldn’t have made that B her freshman year…</p>
<p>“And the affluent families aren’t hurt the most by the lower grades, because they had the connections to call the head of NBC or the N.F.L. and get their child a job. It’s more of a problem for the middle-class parents, who worked hard to pay the college costs, used up their retirement funds and are out of money by graduation time.” --from the NY Times article</p>
<p>That observation would ring very true to both my middle class kids who attend/ed an elite college. Grades and good internships make a lot more of a difference for kids like mine than for their peers. When in a whining mood, D has occasionally lamented that she alone among her friends works full time in the summer (others tour Europe, hang out at their parents’ vacation home, or just work a sports camp for two weeks), only she has a menial job on campus, and only she has had to spend countless hours applying for internships. The rich kids with connections can get summer jobs if they want them and jobs after graduation without having to stress over their grades or previous work experiences, because Mommy and Daddy know and are themselves CEO’s and VP’s of top companies. I would imagine that knowing that you won’t need a high GPA to land an internship or permanent job could easily affect your study habits.</p>
<p>Sue22–full financial support might mean $25,000 at a state directional though, not $60,000 at Harvard…</p>
<p>I am sure this distinction must have been made earlier, but I am interested in who pays the nonparental part. Is it financial aid or is the student required to work and earn money. I am a firm believer in “that which costs nothing has no value” not my personal gauge, but human economic behavior.</p>
<p>Instead of a study examining the relationship between student performance and parental contribution, I would like to see a study on the relationship between student performance and student contribution… and loans don’t count. I think too many students view loans when received as “free money.” It is only when they get the book of payment coupons with a nearby due date that they understand the cost.</p>
<p>Re: #57</p>
<p>Perhaps what is being observed is a somewhat diluted form of what was observed in the 1950s, when schools like HYP admitted a lot of their students from the socially elite private prep schools, with some top academic students from the public schools, finding that the former were mostly content with gentlemen’s C grades, while the latter were more driven to succeed in school.</p>