Parents' Financial Support Leads to Lower College GPAs, But Increases Graduate Numbers

A new study shows that when a student is aware of his parent's financial support, he or she doesn't study as hard resulting in low GPA scores.

Money makes the world go round. Or at least that's what college students protected by their parent's financial support think. Students who are financially supported by their parents tend to study less resulting is lower GPA scores, according to a a new study by University of California, Merced, sociology professor Laura T. Hamilton.

"Students with parental support are best described as staying out of serious academic trouble, but dialing down their academic efforts," Hamilton wrote in the study.

Over the years, colleges have started tuitions apart from regular classroom teaching and the burden has fallen on parents who've done everything they can to finance their child's education. Through this study, Hamilton hopes to find out if parent's financial support leads to better academic performance by students.

"Regardless of class background, the toll parental aid takes on GPA is modest," Hamilton said. "Yet, any reduction in student GPA due to parental aid -- which is typically offered with the best of intentions -- is both surprising and important."

Hamilton found that college students these days are more preoccupied to doing things their parents won't approve of instead of studying. Another study found that college students spend merely 28 hours a week doing class and home work combines, which is not even half of the time spent by a high school student in class alone.

Through her study, Hamilton finds that "parental aid increased the odds of graduating within five years. Students with no parental aid in their first year of college had a 56.4 percent predicted probability of graduating, compared with 65.2 percent for students who received $12,000 in aid from their parents."