Title: Do tuition increases lower student academic performance?

Authors: Sudesh Mujumdar; Daniel Friesner; Timothy Schibik; Charles Harrington

Addresses: University of Southern Indiana, Business and Engineering Center 2058, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, Indiana 47712, USA ' North Dakota State University, Dept. 2650, P.O. Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6085, USA ' University of Southern Indiana, Business and Engineering Center 1019, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, Indiana 47712, USA ' University of South Carolina Upstate, 800 University Way, Spartanburg, SC 29303, USA

Abstract: In this paper, we develop and test an economic model which examines the relationship between changing (usually increasing) college tuition and students' academic performance, with specific attention paid to intermediate role played by the financing of a student's education. To do so, we extend Mujumdar, et al.'s (2004) tuition-performance trade-off model to allow for the inclusion of student loans and heterogeneity in family support for college. Predictions from the model are tested using a panel of students drawn from a Midwestern, regional public institution between 1998 and 2005. The results indicate that a one-unit increase in a student's overall financial burden reduces her/his grade point average by approximately 0.22 units in any given semester and her/his cumulative grade point average by 0.20 units. Consequently, colleges that have consistently increased education costs over this time frame may have indirectly harmed the welfare of their students.

Keywords: tuition fees; student financial burden; grade point average; work-study balance; data analysis; Tobit model; academic performance; student loans; family support; education costs; USA; United States.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDATS.2016.079061

International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies, 2016 Vol.8 No.3, pp.183 - 205

Received: 11 Mar 2014
Accepted: 20 Dec 2014
Published online: 12 Sep 2016 *

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