Parental Financial Help in College Lowers GPA

[Scot]

If my offspring do not show talent by the end of high school, they are getting a tradeskill or starting thier own business. Binge drinking and screwing for 4 years on my dime is not going to happen. I see far too many degree-holding failures out there already.

Uh... If you don't think they'll be motivated enough to succeed in college, you shouldn't recommend they start their own business.

[Laize]

This is what capitalism does to your brain. You care so much about green paper that you would rather hoard more of it for a new car or whatever instead of giving your children a chance in this world

Excuse me but isn't it plain that even my hypothetical example I'm paying for his college and he's throwing that gift away?

[Catta]

Excuse me but isn't it plain that even my hypothetical example I'm paying for his college and he's throwing that gift away?

Well - he may just not be very smart. Its not always possible to get the best grades. If he does his best and graduates then isn't that worth it? A graduation with mediocre grades is worth more than none.

[Badpaladin]

Not everyone's planning on going to grad school. And you can get a job in your field with a 2.0. That's all you really need.

The point is to get a good job in your field, not just a job. To give an example, there's a huge difference between working at nVidia straight out of school (who have a 3.5 minimum GPA requirement) and some small software company where the boss hasn't done software development in his life. If people are fine with accepting the mediocre positions in their field then power to them, but I certainly wouldn't pay for a kid to go to school if he was fine with getting shitty grades and working a crappy job in his field. That has "I can take out a loan" written all over it.

[yurano]

I'm not saying it's great, but you can do something with it. After that it's your on the job experience that will matter.

You need to find your first job to get work experience. Having a good GPA will help when looking for the first job, helping you in the 'resume' search and/or technical interview.

You're saying something like, high school GPA is unimportant when you're looking for a job. What I'm saying is, a good high school GPA will place you at a better college which will help you find a job in the future.

[Reeve]

Isn't a 2.0 GPA basically a Third Class degree? I mean, I would NEVER hire someone that had a 3rd... Even a 2:2 is questionable... Either they're incompetent or unwilling to apply themselves when expected.

Employers rarely ever ask about your GPA, especially after you've been working post college for a few years.

[Laize]

Well - he may just not be very smart. Its not always possible to get the best grades. If he does his best and graduates then isn't that worth it? A graduation with mediocre grades is worth more than none.

Well that depends on his field.

If my son wanted to get a degree in something ridiculous like music history I'd tell him he was on his own.

I'm not sure how one can get bad grades given they do the work. In college, just knowing the material is enough to get a GPA 2.5 or higher.

[Deleted]

Of course someone that is more determined and studies more in general is going to get a higher grade. The group of people that get their college tuition paid consists of both determined people and undetermined people, where as the people that have to pay themselfs usually only consist of determined people. The undetermined people that don't have money don't goto college and don't get included in the fancy GPA stat eh?

[semaphore]

If a kid isn't willing to put forth the effort to at least get B's in an academic world where teachers inflate grades, why does he or she deserve money?

The average difference is really rather minute though.

[Wiyld]

I think it has less to do with whether your parents are paying and more to do with how much you respect your parents.


If you just don't give a shit, if you treat it like its a handout becuase you don't care what impact it has on your parents then your not going to try as hard.

If you respect your parents and recognize the extended commitment they made to your life with this money then you might be even MORE motivated.

[Underverse]

meh I'm not paying for my college lol and I have a good gpa

now if I did pay for college....maybe I wouldve gotten a 4.0....

[Chief Brouhaha]

My parents helping out with my college funding actually inspires me to try harder because I don't want their money to go to waste. I think these kinds of studies are a bit silly. Not everybody is the same. I don't plan on having children, but if I did, I'd feel responsible for helping them get off on the right foot in the world.

Same. I do not want to let my parents down or make them feel like their hard work raising me and paying for my school was wasted, so I try extremely hard and am more motivated than ever.

Edit: Also I have more time to study & relax leaving me less stressed than having to go straight to studying to work again

[obdigore]

Save up money for your kids college, have them take out the loans and work jobs to get through it, then help them with their loan payments.

Make them work for it and make them get the benefit of getting what they struggled for, while still doing what you can for them. Seems like win/win to me.

[Grizzly Willy]

It's not any different. I haven't met a single coed who works at least part-time and doesn't have a GPA better than most of their peers. Almost everyone I know with a 3.2+ GPA works or has recently worked to help pay for their education.

Hm, suppose it would depend for my situation. I've been taking out loans and getting grants to pay for education, while working over the summer to pay for books. Have a 3.6 GPA at the moment.

[yurano]

Hm, suppose it would depend for my situation. I've been taking out loans and getting grants to pay for education, while working over the summer to pay for books. Have a 3.6 GPA at the moment.

GPA is highly relative to where you go to school.

I know a couple of people who transferred to a 4 year from a community college. 3.8+ at CC, academic probation first quarter at 4 year.

It could be that people who pay for their own education tend to go to for lower ranked schools that hand them scholarships, resulting in higher GPAs. It could also be that self pay students tend to go to community colleges that are easier.

I would take the results of this study with a grain of salt because there are a lot of confounding factors to control for and the ABC article doesn't link to the study itself.

[Annapolis]

I would take the results of this study with a grain of salt because there are a lot of confounding factors to control for and the ABC article doesn't link to the study itself.

Ya I think that's because the study hasn't actually been published in the journal yet as far as I could tell so we don't know exactly what they did control for yet. But I'd think relative costs of schools would be one of the first ones they'd look at.

[semaphore]

It should also be noted that the study found that parental aid lowered GPA but increased the chances of actually graduating.

Ya I think that's because the study hasn't actually been published in the journal yet as far as I could tell so we don't know exactly what they did control for yet. But I'd think relative costs of schools would be one of the first ones they'd look at.

It's been published online before print actually. You can find it on sagepub.

[Buxton McGraff]

Parental disappointment is worse than getting kicked in the groin repeatedly, for me at least. I'm too afraid to disappoint my parents, to the point where it makes me all the more motivated to do well in College.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

It should also be noted that the study found that parental aid lowered GPA but increased the chances of actually graduating.

It's been published online before print actually. You can find it on sagepub.

Yeah, the conclusions here don't seem very valid. They controlled for a few factors only. I can think of several possible reasons for average GPA to be lower that is related to financial help that isn't a causal link. Since you mention the increased chance of graduating, I'll say that one of those possible reasons would be later year courses being harder than earlier year courses and those without financial help from parents are less likely to be able to continue attending college long enough to reach those harder courses.

[Seirith]

I honestly think these recently published studies are total crap. My grandmother paid for all 4 years of my undergrad education. I graduated with a 3.92 and had ONE class less than an A, which was a B+ by a teacher who told us is the first day she never gave A's. I did not work any less hard because my grandmother paid than if I had paid. 2 of the 4 years I also lived on my own with my husband and had a part time job as well.