Research Blog #8: Case

A study done by Doris Bennett, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter of Jacksonville University titled, The Impact of Financial Stress on Academic Performance in College Economics Courses will be my main example in order to prove my thesis. The title of the article explains all you really need to know about the actual study for this blog's purposes. The summary of this study written at the end details many of the key ideas I wish to touch upon in my paper.

"This research establishes a statistically significant link between financial stress and academic performance. Students who were worried about paying for college averaged 4.5 percentage points lower in class grades than students who were not worried about paying for college. There was a 3.7 point difference in the course grade for students who weren’t able to afford to purchase the required textbooks. Students who stated that the financial stress affected their academic performance had course averages that were 6.6 points lower than those who were not financially stressed. It appears that certain groups of students were more affected by stress than others. A significantly higher proportion of the stressed students with lower scores were women, minorities, and first-generation college students, groups with below average rates of college attendance. Working more hours to meet financial obligations, they have less time to study, which has a negative impact on their academic performance. With lower grades, these financially stressed, often lower income, students are less likely to complete the college education that they need to improve their chances for a better future. The scope of the problem is even broader because students must repay large amounts of student debt, which can potentially have a negative impact on economic growth by hampering their ability to purchase big-ticket items." (Bennet et al.)

This study exemplifies the affects of the privatization of higher education, as well as the student loans it causes, on students- lower class students especially. 

"Working more hours to meet financial obligations, they have less time to study, which has a negative impact on their academic performance. With lower grades, these financially stressed, often lower income, students are less likely to complete the college education that they need to improve their chances for a better future." (Bennet et al.)

This idea that the writers put forward is an almost exact outline of what I want to prove in my paper. This case is going to be extremely useful, not only as a study to prove what I am arguing, but as a logically flowing argument that I can incorporate into the rest of my paper.