31 Pages Posted: 14 Apr 2016 Last revised: 19 May 2017
We exploit changes in the residential and social environment on campus to identify the economic and academic consequences of fraternity membership at a small Northeastern college. Our estimates suggest that these consequences are large, with fraternity membership lowering student GPA by approximately 0.25 points on the traditional four-point scale, but raising future income by approximately 36%, for those students whose decision about membership is affected by changes in the environment. These results suggest that fraternity membership causally produces large gains in social capital, which more than outweigh its negative effects on human capital for potential members. Alcohol-related behavior does not explain much of the effects of fraternity membership on either the human capital or social capital effects. These findings suggest that college administrators face significant trade-offs when crafting policies related to Greek life on campus.
CrossGuy413 on September 22nd, 2017 at 20:39 UTC »
IMO, the most important part of this article to keep in mind is the sample size. These are the results for a small Northeastern college. Campus culture at a small school and a large school can change everything here. If this is a drop in grades for the semester of membership, I could get behind it. If it's a drop in grades over the duration of membership, I would disagree. The bigger issue with a study like this is that it's hard to draw any conclusions due to the number of variables involved. Every campus and national organization has different policies, campus size, culture, geographical location, etc. it's certainly interesting, but not nearly enough for me to make any conclusions. From my experience, my grades went up by .3 over 4 years and I secured one of the most coveted jobs in my field. I also saw other people start out with honors-level grades and end up dropping out.
Kitten_of_Death on September 22nd, 2017 at 17:59 UTC »
One interesting aspect is their assessment that the since the choice of major might be impacted by what happens after joining a fraternity, the choice of major should be excluded from the model.
There is the possibility of pre-selection going on here where folks joining certain majors are more likely to join fraternities.
Or another possibility of fraternity membership and the social capital gain associated with it, impacting incomes over a lifetime to varying degrees depending on the choice of major.
Perhaps the effect is greater for philosophy or economics majors than art history majors.
It's a fun read though, especially in terms of methodology in trying to isolate the key variables in the midst of the kerfuffle that is college.
Kitten_of_Death on September 22nd, 2017 at 16:53 UTC »
I can't read the link, but do they effectively isolate joining a fraternity from possible causes of joining a fraternity that may also impact future earnings?