The findings -- particularly grouped with other work by the researcher who made them -- suggest that the students least likely to excel are those who receive essentially blank checks for college expenses.
The study -- "More Is More or More Is Less?" -- is by Laura Hamilton, an assistant professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at the University of California at Merced, and was just published by the American Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association.
MORE.
While I agree with the general principles that students who pay for at least part of their education are likely to take it more seriously (while also pointing that a discouraging number of my students are working so much to help pay tuition that they're not getting as much out of the education they're paying for as they otherwise might), and that there are plenty of spoiled rich kids who party their way through (or out of) college, I find myself wondering how big the differences in GPAs the researchers found were, and to what extent the difference might also reflect more privileged students' comfort in taking on challenging courses, and/or feeling free to concentrate more on learning than on earning the highest possible grade?
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: my father -- with some very hard work, and some moonlighting -- paid my full Ivy League tuition (yes, I know I'm very lucky), and I graduated with a B+ average (and an undergraduate research prize that probably explains how I got into grad school at another Ivy, and got a fellowship, with a B+ average). I was not particularly grade-oriented; I was, however, a quite serious student (and one who occasionally took classes that were out of my areas of strength and/or over my head, and occasionally went off on tangents of my own devising in classes in my major, sometimes to the minor detriment of the most heavily-weighted assigned work). I also never, ever complained about or questioned a grade. And I did very little partying (though I wasted a fair amount of time in other ways). In short, I'm pretty sure my father got his money's worth (and he seemed satisfied with the result, and was definitely pleased with the grad fellowship, especially since his father had paid for his Ph.D., and he was willing to do the same for me. On the other hand, one of the most lasting memories of his own Ph.D. career was his embarrassment at realizing that tuition was due for the thesis-writing as well as the class-taking years, and having to call up his father (who had a two-year degree) and tell him that. It may also matter how hard a family finds it to pay the tuition, and how aware a student is of the sacrifices involved. I certainly felt some responsibility to make the most of my college experience.
I went to college twice. The first time, my parents paid, and I was much more concerned with matters of freedom and fun. The second time, I paid, and I took it so much more seriously.
DeleteThere are lots of factors, but money was definitely one of them: I did not value it.
First college experience, I failed out.
Second college experience, I got straight As.
Even if parents pay off the balance at the end, I think making the kids take out student loans will help clarify just how expensive -- and important -- college is.
Monkey - I had almost exactly the same experience. A little world seasoning does wonders.
DeleteCassandra, I like the questions you pose, particularly the question of comfort in challenging oneself with less fear of material consequences.
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure where I would have fit into this, but some parts sound like what you describe for yourself. I identified pretty strongly with both Quakers and the Straight Edge movement, which meant I never touched alcohol or drugs, and there was a large range of subjects in which I had a passionate interest. Like you, I was also quite willing to sign up for classes that were out of my depth, often some distance away from my major, and for the classes I really cared about, I tended to take on projects whose ambition exceeded my grasp. This resulted in a few disappointments and some really satisfying successes, and the range is almost certainly the reason I went from an undergrad education in the humanities with almost no mathematics training to a PhD and a career in the mathematics end of computer science.
But it's also true that I had no sense of the financial stakes involved. My parents were able to pay four years of full tuition & living expenses for me without loans (though I held down part-time jobs through most of college for books and "fun" expenses). As a student, I was bimodal, being either intensely devoted or intensely lazy and scattered. My GPA at the end of my first year was very high, but that's because failed classes at my school simply disappeared from the record (wasted tuition, but not counted in the GPA), and I failed half of my classes, leaving me on academic probation with an honor roll GPA. This was true during several quarters, actually.
Embarrassingly, I was also one of those little jerks who had a much greater sense of inherent grandiosity than was warranted, and thus declared more than a few classes I was in to be not worth my time. *sigh*
As Mike Royko observed, the only way to discipline children these days is by taking away their dope.
ReplyDeleteI'd send them to fight in Afghanistan with defective weapons, just to see if they would figure it out, steal guns from the Taliban, and fight both the modern mujaheddin and the corrupt Afghan government (made up of Taliban turncoats and opportunists.)
DeleteAt least the YouTube videos will be darkly hilarious.
I'm kind of surprised that I can find no earlier CM posting about this NY Times article, from 12/22/2012:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html
It's kind of dual to the current article. Taken together, they do a nice job revealing some of the complexity of this question.
I don't think it is simple and straightforward - from my own student days, I saw elite private-school educated guys totally flunk out of 1st year and then get plum jobs at the company where daddy was CEO, but also saw others be at the top of the class because they were smart and worked their asses off, and saw students existing solely on student loans with their noses to the grindstone, but also saw others who took their SAP (Student Assistance Program) funds and use them as SAP (Stereo Acquisition Program) funds.
DeleteI teach at a second-tier state university, where state support has led to a doubling of tuition fees in recent years, and the majority of our students are contributing to the cost of their own education.
ReplyDeleteWhile this gives them a strong sense of the financial burden of the degree, it doesn't necessarily mean that they work harder at their studies, or that they get better grades. In fact, the rising financial burden means that many of them are working long hours off campus in order to support themselves, and as a result, many of them also complain about any class that requires too much out-of-class work.
My course evaluations are perennially full of complaints about how much reading I assign, and about how my classes are "too hard" or "too demanding." Paradoxically, at the very time that these students are being asked to pay more and more for their education, they are calling for the value of that education to be watered down.
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DeleteThis accords with my experience of students. My favorite midterm evaluation from last year read something like, "You shouldn't require so much reading from us during the week. Some of us, myself included, have jobs." In fact, "I have a job" is now shorthand for a new kind of snowflakery--i.e. you must let me off the hook because I "work really hard." You'd think these were the first people in the world to have to get up every day, go to work, pay taxes, and pay for car insurance.
DeleteAdditionally, many paying students seem more eager to self-identify as customers. I guess there's nothing like plopping down your own hard-earned dollar to make you feel entitled to a certain type of experience. "I worked all summer to pay for this class ..." "I'm paying my hard-earned money for this, who cares if I want to text during class ..." "I have to miss class for work, but who cares because I'm paying for this class anyway ..." "I paid for this class, I expected the teacher to be more exciting ..."
That makes sense. If you're going to college to learn and challenge and improve yourself, or even just to prove to others that you're smart, spending your own money would make you not want to waste the opportunity.
DeleteIf you're going to college to buy a degree because you need a degree to get a job, then spending your own money would only make you feel more entitled to that degree. You've already paid so much money; why should you have to work hard on top of that? It makes no sense. Why would anyone pay for the opportunity to work hard?
My first reaction to the article is, "Well, DUH!" I guess that's because I got squat for college from my mother (who could have afforded to help) and had to pay for it all myself with loans and by working three jobs. I was magna cum laude becuase fuck it, I was paying for it and I wasn't going to screw it up.
ReplyDeleteSororities? Who had the time and money for that? I still find the entire idea of sororities and fraternities pretty repellent, and from the other end I see firsthad how kids fail because of them. And what kind of idiot parent pays for their kid's spring break? Unless my kid is going on a mission trip to help Guatemalan orphans or something, she gets nada for that. She can pay for her Girls Gone Wild experience herself.
But I do intend to pay for my daughter's education, within reason. If she gets into some tony school that costs 60k and she really really wants to go, well she will be really really disappointed. She ain't goin'. She can always go to my SLAC or husband's big state school for practically nothing and get a great education. If she wants to get out of town, she can find a state school, or a school that will give her a big scholarship. As a product of city and state schools through my Ph.D., and someone that has taught at both private and state schools, I know that the amount of money you pay doesn't necessarily correlate to the quality of your education.
But as for the finding a job thing, I'm totally against trying to control what she goes into. First she wanted to be a vet (good job prospects), now she wants to be an artist (bad job prospects), but I don't think college is simply about job prospects, so she's welcome to explore whatever road she finds most appealing.
Are you sure you're not me? Change a few details (my father could have afforded to help me, but didn't, though he did provide funds for an extra-mural studies program that changed my life permanently for the better, so he wasn't completely awful)...I agree with you. I double majored in subjects my parents didn't approve of, but since I was paying for it, they couldn't force me to major in business or something equally soul-crushing. I graduated cum laude, and paid for (will be paying for until I am 70) grad school because I knew what I wanted. My grades were good because anything else was a waste of my time and money. I hope my kids have the same work ethic....likely, since I have no money to give them to pay for college.
DeleteOne of my colleague friends has kids that have all gone to college. It was all on scholarships. They knew ahead of time that they were not going to get a free ride from their parents, and that if they didn't keep up their grades, they'd lose their scholarships and have to go back and live at home and go to the school where mom teaches. And work part-time to pay for it. It's a great school, but most students wouldn't want to do that.
DeleteKids all did great. They knew better not to.