College GPA

It has been 54 years since I began my college experiences.  Times have changed drastically since then.  But I am finding out that a few things haven't changed about the experience.  When I was a teenager my parents really had little.  After World War II, jobs were scare and we moved many times until my father finally obtained a "permanent" job as an engineer at RCA.  A big treat for us then was having a quarter to buy a bottle of soda for the family.  So when my college years rolled around, my parents really weren't in a position to pay my way.  So the deal was that they would provide my room and board and living expenses but I had to pay for my tuition, fees and books.  I worked several jobs.  I earned scholarships and I took out government loans to get through. It took me ten years to pay off the loans. But, as a result, my education really meant something to me since much of the cost was coming out of my pocket and I didn't want to waste this money.  I often noticed that those of us who were paying our own ways seemed to study harder and take our work more seriously than those whose parents were footing the entire bill.  I know that this is a generalization, but it was a definite observation that I made at that time.  And I graduated Magna Cum Laude.  Later in life, as my three boys faced the college years, I found that, like my parents, I couldn't afford to pay their entire bill.  In those days public school teachers didn't earn very much. I started at $3,800 per year and had to work at nights and on weekends to support my family. So I made the same deal with my boys - we pay the living expenses, you pay the rest.  All three decided to live at home and commute - two to Millersville and one to Penn State York.  Now I know every family is different and I don't want to judge them for their decisions.  But today I guess most folks feel that they must pay the entire bill for their child's education and that is a major challenge.  For us, we had no choice.  We just couldn't do it.  And I have no regrets. But I admit that I haven't thought too much about this lately since we are no longer affected my this problem.  However, recently I read an interesting article in the local newspaper and I realize now that I might not have been that far off base in my thinking.  The headline said "Parental help hurts college GPA" and it was written by a Justin Pope for the Associated Press.  The lead paragraph says "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 that they may not be doing them any favors in another area - generous financial support appears to lead to lower grades."  He goes on to discuss a recent study published in the American Sociological Review based on figures from three large federal data sets that allow parental contributions and grades to be compared.  Family socioeconomic status was controlled to allow a comparison of similar students.  For example, among those families with at least $90,000 available in income, parents not giving their children any support can expect a GPA of 3.15.  At $16,000 in aid the GPA drops to under 3.0 and at $40,000 it drops to 2.95.  Interesting.  Now the writer thinks the reason is that those students who are not paying their own way are free to take on a more active social and extracurricular life.  And as he says, "that may be fun and even worthwhile, but it comes at a cost to GPA". Living and observing in a college town makes me second his conclusion.  However, I think the bottom line is that all of us tend to value more something which we have personally worked hard and sacrificed to obtain.  And maybe that is an important life lesson that many college students ought to learn.