I'm still going to do my same idea about "How are you Paying for College?" but I think I might change it to what you suggested about instead of doing a random survey, to go to an adviser. But I'm not exactly sure how to go about that yet. I wonder if I should do a certain amount of students like 25 or just do percentages. I have to think about that one, I think doing percentages on how students are paying for college would be more accurate. But I would like to find out how many parents pay for their children's college tuition. But I feel like I can't find that out from an adviser so I might have to ask students for that one.
I found an interesting article on parents paying for college.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/education/parents-financial-support-linked-to-college-grades.html?_r=0
This article has an interesting look at students grades when parents are paying for college. If the parents are paying, apparently the students grades are more likely to be low than if the student is paying for college themselves. The students are more likely to work harder if they are paying with their own money. Also, those who go to college on their parents bills are more likely to graduate on time or at all. This would definitely be an interesting topic to research and find out more about. Here's a different article that provides similar ideas about student's grades being lower if their parents are footing the bills.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/14/study-finds-increased-parental-support-college-results-lower-grades
I think this might be the topic I focus on more closely now, how students are paying for college meaning are their parents helping them?
I'm glad you agree that it would be useful to find some statistics. As part of "scouting the territory," I'd like to see you look around
ReplyDeletefor what information is out there. This post does not fulfill the assignment. You need to do at least some online searching.
Besides looking for statistics (which might require academic sources), you could also look at news articles about parental contribution to
college. I saw a recent articles from the NY Times that suggested that as parental contribution went up, student effort declined -- and I take that article as evidence that more parents are looking for an excuse to contribute less.... :-) It certainly should encourage them. There was also a study that got a lot of attention in the press that suggests that divorced parents are much less likely to contribute to college expenses than married
parents. What are we to make of that, I wonder? And if divorce rates are on the rise (which seems likely), could that be reducing average parental contributions?
Look around on the internet and tell us what you find out there. You can use the "edit" feature to add, or add via the comments. But you really have not done any scouting here.
I'm not sure if the "parental contribution" question is really what you wanted to focus on, but it is certainly one that is being talked about. I have seen articles about how parents need to delay retirement or go into debt to fund their children's education, and most suggest that even these self-sacrificing parents resent the burden of college expenses.
ReplyDeleteGood -- thanks for improving your post. One thing to note about the college grades story, though, is that it seems to have gotten attention mostly because it justifies parents not paying (which an increasing number would prefer not to do).
ReplyDelete