Don’t pay for all of your kids’ college education

…a new study…found that the more money (in total and as a share of total college costs) that parents provide for higher education, the lower the grades their children earn.

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 Inside Higher Ed piece is here.  The NYT piece is here.  Here is a summary of the research from the researcher, Laura Hamilton.  Here is the paper itself, forthcoming in the American Sociological Review, available to subscribers and university systems only I suspect.

I should note that this piece includes all of the appropriate controls, but still we do not know how good those controls are and perhaps parental paying practices are proxying for other features of the situation.