Joining fraternities and sororities distracts students from their classes. A new study suggests that students’ grades may be suffering and they are choosing easier courses to fit in Greek activities.
The problem: Some students consider fraternities and sororities to be an important part of campus life. Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of young adults are members of Greek-letter organizations, many of which exist primarily as social groups that also perform community service and raise money for charity. There is, however, some debate over whether these fraternities and sororities actually harm more than they add to the college experience and college missions of students.
Fraternities in particular have long been associated with hazing, excessive drinking, sexual assault and other dangerous behavior. In March 2017, the University of Connecticut bans Kappa Sigma fraternity campus after a woman was killed following a fraternity party.
It is unclear to what extent joining a fraternity or sorority influences graduation or job placement rates. There is little published research on these topics. A 2011 study examined students during their first year of college and found no differences between fraternity and sorority members and students without Greek affiliation in areas such as critical thinking and cognitive activity. But a new study says Greek affiliation could hurt academic performance.
An academic study to read: “The effects of Greek affiliation on academic performance”, Published in Review of the economics of education2017.
Summary of the study: Andrew De Donato of Duke University and James Thomas of Yale University examine how students’ grades are affected by fraternity or sorority membership. For the study, De Donato and Thomas focus on Duke, which prohibits students from joining Greek organizations until the fall semester of their freshman year. This rule allowed the two authors to compare the performance of students before and after their membership.
For the study, they reviewed student transcripts and examined data collected by the university’s Campus Living and Learning (CLL) survey from students entering undergraduate programs in 2001 and 2002. The vast majority of the 1,008 students in the sample are white, and more than one-third come from families earning more than $200,000 a year.
Key takeaways:
- Joining a fraternity is associated with a slightly lower GPA during the spring semester of the first year. Additionally, fraternity members “strategically choose courses with lenient grades during that semester in order to mitigate the negative effects of affiliation.”
- Sorority members appear to be most distracted from their classes during the spring semesters after their freshman year, when they are involved in recruiting and educating new members. During these semesters, being a member of a sorority is associated with a slightly lower grade point average. Sorority members choose easier courses during these semesters.
- Students with different academic abilities are affected differently. Students with lower SAT scores “experience strong negative effects.”
Other resources:
Related search:
- Journalist’s Resource has collected research on college hazingand writes about research on Asians in higher educationhow higher education affects wealth and the impact of a college education on prison sentences.
- A 2016 study published in Trauma, violence and abuse, “Sexual assault on campus: a systematic review of research on prevalence from 2000 to 2015” synthesizes research findings on sexual assault on college campuses over 15 years.
- A study carried out in 2015 in the Journal of College Student Development, “The Effects of Fraternity and Sorority Membership in the Fourth Year of College: A Detrimental or Value-Added Component of Undergraduate Education? » found that “membership in a fraternity/sorority had no direct effect on critical thinking skills, moral reasoning, propensity for inquiry and lifelong learning, and good -psychological being of students in the fourth year of university”.
- A 2015 study in Health Communication, “Do sororities promote member health? A Study of Memorable Messages About Weight and Appearance,” examines the content of communication among sorority members about thinness and weight-related behaviors.
