Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

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livesoft
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Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by livesoft »

A report on a study that found that parental support for college without clear expectations to the student seems to result in lower grades
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/educa ... rades.html

I found this facinating, but also consistent with the many posters on this forum who talked about the requirement of having "skin in the game". I want my children to pay 100% of their own college education, but my spouse want us to pay 100% of our children's college educations. Guess what happens.

So how to keep this thread interesting and not locked? I leave that up to you.
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JamesSFO
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by JamesSFO »

If someone finds the actual article it would be an interesting read.

My $0.02 is just from what is in the NYTimes blurb there isn't enough info to figure out what they really tested for/against/etc.
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jeffyscott
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by jeffyscott »

livesoft wrote:I want my children to pay 100% of their own college education
Great, now how are your children going to come up with $20K or so per year when they are 18-22?

From the article:
The higher graduation rate of students whose parents paid their way is not surprising, she said, since many students leave college for financial reasons.

“Oddly, a lot of the parents who contributed the most money didn’t get the best returns on their investment,” she said. “Their students were more likely to stay and graduate, but their G.P.A.’s were mediocre at best


So who's better off in the end? The "pay your own way" dropout (who got good grades, while attending) or the graduate with mediocre grades?
NYBoglehead
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by NYBoglehead »

I got an idea. You tell a little fib. Just tell them that loans have been taken out in their names, the bills will start coming in when they graduate, maybe you charge them a few hundred bucks along the way to pay some non-existent interest, and then surprise them on graduation day that the bill was footed by mom and dad.
MathWizard
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by MathWizard »

We do about 50%. We live in the same town where my kids go to college, so I told them we would take
care of tuition/fees, and they could take care of books and personal expenses with loans/summer jobs.
They were free to stay/eat at home if they wished, or could pay for that if they wanted to live on their own.

You could go by the FAFSA and the Expected Family Contribution, (maybe that 100% in your case).

Going to college should be a full time job (actually more like 60-70 hours/week job for technical fields).
So I don't think students should work while they are in school. Summers are fine, but not during the year.

College costs have gone up much faster than what kids can make in the summer.
I have a lot wealth than my family did when I went to college, so grants are not an option, so I think
that I need to kick in at least half, otherwise they can't make it.

Expected costs at the university my kids attend is about $20K for in-state. For private schools, costs
are often twice as much. E.g. Stanford for the 2012-2013 year is about $59K.

How would an 18 year old pay that?
sscritic
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by sscritic »

There are different definitions of skin in the game. In a previous thread, some people considered grants from government and grants from universities as skin but grants from relatives not skin. Others considered all grants as not skin.

And what about this? I put enough money to pay for college into UGMAs (it wasn't as expensive then). I gave my children nothing after the age of 18. They never worked. Did I pay for everything or did they? It was their money, but it came from parental grants. They could have bought Maseratis, but they didn't. Skin or not skin?

Actually, the question is wrong. I don't care which child gets the best grades. I care about which child gets to $1 million first and which one retires before age 50. Isn't that our measure of success on bogleheads?
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steadyeddy
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by steadyeddy »

From the article:
There were some affluent families who thought their children were spoiled and didn’t pay the whole cost, and there were some families who had scrimped and saved and borrowed from family members and taken out loans,” she said. “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.
Oddly, a lot of the parents who contributed the most money didn’t get the best returns on their investment. Their students were more likely to stay and graduate, but their G.P.A.’s were mediocre at best, and some I didn’t see study even once.
I'd be interested to read more about the guts of this study because some of Dr. Hamilton's quotes are provocative. She formed a hypothesis because she didn't have visual confirmation that certain students she perceived to be affluent were studying when she lived in a dormitory? And she thinks the heads of NBC and the NFL would reach 10 levels beneath themselves in the ranks and tell a manager to give a 22 year old kid a job? None of this invalidates the study, but it makes it difficult for me to trust the conclusions without knowing more.
Gnirk
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by Gnirk »

Being divorced, university expenses were shared by me, my ex-husband, and our daughters. Daughters both worked part-time (about 15-20 hours per week), and full-time during summer breaks. I made out a detailed weekly budget for them which covered every possible expense. Their father and I deposited funds into their checking accounts once a month....which was not enough to pay all of their expenses. They had to make up the difference, and were responsible for paying all their bills.
We told them we would help pay for four years, and four years only. Any extensions were entirely on their dime. They both graduated within four years, and did very well, graduating with no debt.

It worked for us.
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market timer
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by market timer »

I wonder if the reason for this correlation is simply that kids on scholarship get better grades than those who are not.
bogleenigma
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by bogleenigma »

livesoft wrote:A report on a study that found that parental support for college without clear expectations to the student seems to result in lower grades
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/educa ... rades.html

I found this facinating, but also consistent with the many posters on this forum who talked about the requirement of having "skin in the game". I want my children to pay 100% of their own college education, but my spouse want us to pay 100% of our children's college educations. Guess what happens.

So how to keep this thread interesting and not locked? I leave that up to you.
It's an interesting quandary. What we know is that the days of yore when one could successfully work during the summers and during the school year and graduate virtually debt free are gone. My father graduated college with $1,000 in loans in 1970 and was able to work his way entirely through with no parental support. I was lucky enough to have a full tuition scholarship for my associate's and bachelor's degrees. I lived at home during my A.S. and lived off-campus for my B.S. I had some help with living expenses while I completed my B.S. degree, mostly when school was too grueling for me to work more than 16-24 hours a week, though I worked 40-50 hours a week when school was not in . I had also been saving somewhat since the age of 15 when I received my first job. I funded my second undergraduate degree with a small amount of parental help and a LOT of student loans. My graduate degree had a full tuition scholarship and luckily I married a public school teacher during the middle of it, so I had living expenses subsidized somewhat, though I did work 32 hours a week during it :) So....I had a lot of skin in the game, but a fair amount of help when needed. I did quite well. I can say with 100% assurance that if I had zero "financial aid" from my parents I would not be where I am today. I would be underemployed, perhaps unemployed, and with little hope for true financial independence.

My wife never had a job prior to her first professional job as a teacher. Never had a job in High School, graduated with highest honors and received a full ride at a "Below-Ivy League" institution. She finished her degree there and went to an even "higher on the food chain" "Below-Ivy League" institution, also receiving almost a full scholarship. She received 4.0 for high school, college, and graduate school. Yet her parents promised her since she was old enough to think of it that they would 100% fund her if she chose to go to University of Maryland (and live at home) but she received scholarships at higher level schools. She received extensive financial support for living expenses during each of those academic ventures. No "skin in the game" so to speak. She also turned out well.

What my wife and I both shared was a strong parental commitment to our futures and very high expectations for grades. Of course, we both had delivered that in our high school careers. So, at face value, parental support was necessary and vital for our success. And at least my wife will pay back that debt when her parents are aged and in our care at our home (I will, of course, help with this). I, sadly, was unable to fulfill my obligations in this regard as both of my parents passed away.

So, I, personally, see both sides of the argument. My feeling is that if parents are financially able to do so then there is a certain level of obligation to provide some level of financial support for higher education. This is, of course, if said child is "deserving" and has demonstrated prior high level of commitment. It is simply very difficult to find a job in this country without a college education that will pay a living wage. If a parent has the financial means and a child has demonstrated that the parents' investment in their future is reasonable, it would seem to me that it would behoove the parent to facilitate that end.

That said, it's a very different story when I read of parents who forsake their retirement and re-mortgage their houses to pay for a child's education. This, in the context of the child declaring a liberal arts major at a private institution. This is utter foolishness. What my wife and I have decided to do is to default to the choice that her parents made: we will pay for 100% of tuition, room, and board at a state institution. They will have a part-time job if they want play money. If they want to go to private school then we will pay the equivalent of tuition, room, and board at a state institution and they will be responsible for the rest. We will not co-sign for loans for any degree that does not directly lead to a professional designation upon its completion (no B.A. in Basketweaving) and with a reasonable chance of long-term employment and financial independence. Hopefully our future progeny will be as committed as we were and will receive academic scholarships, at least for some of their education. Hopefully we will be able to instill in them the virtues of Bogleheadism.

So, in conclusion, there are no easy answers. Each family has to decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children. I can only speak to my experience.
Last edited by bogleenigma on Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
bogleenigma
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by bogleenigma »

jeffyscott wrote:
livesoft wrote:I want my children to pay 100% of their own college education
Great, now how are your children going to come up with $20K or so per year when they are 18-22?

From the article:
The higher graduation rate of students whose parents paid their way is not surprising, she said, since many students leave college for financial reasons.

“Oddly, a lot of the parents who contributed the most money didn’t get the best returns on their investment,” she said. “Their students were more likely to stay and graduate, but their G.P.A.’s were mediocre at best


So who's better off in the end? The "pay your own way" dropout (who got good grades, while attending) or the graduate with mediocre grades?
Jeffrey,
Enough said. :)
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Re: Study: Full parental support may lead to lower grades

Post by Alex Frakt »

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Alex Frakt wrote:Personal Finance

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The "personal" and "actionable" requirements are there to avoid exactly this type of thread which, prior to the enactment of these requirements, typically resulted in a low number of useful posts and an undue and unnecessary amount of ill feelings and intemperate exchanges.

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