Ruth N. López Turley Matthew S. Desmond. University of Wisconsin Madison Department of Sociology 1180 Observatory Drive Madison, WI 53706

Transcription

1 CONTRIBUTIONS TO COLLEGE COSTS BY MARRIED AND DIVORCED PARENTS * Ruth N. López Turley Matthew S. Desmond University of Wisconsin Madison Department of Sociology 1180 Observatory Drive Madison, WI * Data used in this study are restricted due to sensitive financial information and are therefore not available from the authors. They were collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department of Education.

2 ABSTRACT Although a growing body of literature supports the economic deprivation thesis when explaining the relationship between marital disruption and educational success, few studies describe the specific ways in which children from divorced or separated homes are economically deprived and why they matter for educational outcomes. Using a national sample of parents of dependent college students, this study compares the financial contributions of married and divorced parents toward the college education of their children. An investigation of parents contributions across the income distribution reveals that divorced parents do not necessarily contribute less than married parents and, in some cases, they even contribute more, both in absolute dollars and as a proportion of their income or their children s financial need. These findings present a challenge to current social scientific accounts that contend that children from divorced households receive viably less financial assistance than children from married households.

3 INTRODUCTION The US postsecondary education system is based upon the premise that parents will fund a significant portion of their children s college costs. 1 In 1995, the average amount a family paid for a fulltime dependent undergraduate student was approximately $8,036 per year (Lee 1999). While federal, state, and institutional aid help defray the cost of a postsecondary education, most college students expect their parents to help with the costs (Peters 1991). However, tuition and fees have been rising at a significantly faster rate than financial aid or inflation (Baum 2001; Kane 1999), and non-tuition expenditures such as room and board, the price of textbooks, and the cost of a meal-plan also have increased substantially. Federal aid has been shifting toward the allocation of loans, most of which are unsubsidized and non-need-based (Hearn 2001; McPherson and Schapiro 1998), and, at the same time, state funding for merit-based programs has increased at a much faster rate than funding for need-based programs (Heller 1997; 2002). In addition, there is evidence that some institutions respond to increases in government aid by inflating student charges, such that institutions recover as much as 30% of the financial aid intended to help families (Long 2004). These trends are forcing parents to shoulder a growing portion of their children s college costs. Among those most harmed by the increasing costs of college and the devaluation of financial aid are children from low-income families, whose college enrollment rates are decreasing (Kane 1999; McPherson 1993). The widening gap between financial aid and college costs is making it increasingly difficult for low-income parents to pay for college, and single parents are disproportionately affected since they tend to experience greater 1 Among industrialized nations, only the US, Japan, and Korea finance more than half of postsecondary expenditures by private means (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1997, p. 56). 1

4 economic hardship than married parents. The odds that a parent is able to pay for a postsecondary education are estimated to decrease by 57% if he or she is unmarried (Steelman and Powell 1991), and the situation is especially bleak for African American women, who possess much less wealth and have significantly lower incomes (Espenshade 1985). Social scientists have long argued that the economic disadvantages that accompany marital disruption handicap the educational performance of children from divorced homes. According to the well-known economic deprivation thesis, children from divorced households fare worse in educational attainment than children from married households because of the financial destitution associated with marital disruption rather than the negative effects of marital disruption per se (McLanahan 1985; Ploeg 2002). Yet, very few studies investigate the specific ways in which children of divorced households are economically deprived, and those few have unanimously found that children from divorced homes receive less financial support than their counterparts from married households (Amato et al. 1995; Grissett and Furr 1994; White 1992). In this article, we examine one mechanism of economic deprivation that significantly affects students academic achievement: parental contributions to college costs. After comparing parental contributions across marital status, we find that while lowincome married parents contribute slightly more than low-income divorced parents, highincome divorced parents contribute significantly more than high-income married parents. We suggest that high-income divorced parents contribute more than married parents in the same income bracket due to different parenting styles and financial clauses in divorce settlements. 2

5 PREVIOUS RESEARCH Despite concern over the financial disadvantages faced by children from singleparent families, very few studies have directly examined parental contributions toward their children s educational costs by family type. 2 However, social scientists have devoted a considerable amount of effort attempting to explain the relationship between family structure and educational success. Numerous studies have concluded that young adults from divorced or separated households are less likely to be admitted to college and are also less likely to attend and to graduate vis-à-vis their peers from married households (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Sandefur et al. 1992). Significant differences in college attendance and completion rates remain even after the amount of financial aid students receive is held constant (Ploeg 2002), and they widen when comparisons are made using data from selective universities (Lillard and Gerner 1999). Researchers have offered several competing explanations to account for the negative relationship between marital disruption and educational success, including parental absence (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Duncan and Hoffman 1985), residential mobility (Astone and McLanahan 1994; Haveman et al. 1991), lower returns to education (Becker and Tomes 1986; Powell and Parcel 1997; Topel 1999), and economic deprivation (McLanahan 1985; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). The economic deprivation thesis asserts that fiscal disadvantages that accompany marital disruption are a more potent causal explanation in determining educational outcomes than family dynamics per se (McLanahan 1985; 1997). Relative to the other explanations, the economic deprivation thesis seems to 2 Notable exceptions include White (1992), Grissett and Furr (1994), and Amato, Rezac, and Booth (1995). 3

6 explain the most variation. The economic deprivation thesis can be traced back to forty-year-old arguments reacting to claims linking single motherhood to social pathologies, such as those found in the Moynihan Report (see Rainwater and Yancey 1967). Its recent popularity in the debate over the relationship between marital disruption and educational attainment is attributed to the work of Sara McLanahan, who demonstrates that the lower academic attainment of children from single-parent homes is a result of poverty rather than family structure (1985; 1997; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). In McLanahan s (1997) view, poverty matters more for educational success, whereas family disruption and parental absence matters more for behavioral and psychological problems. In sum, single parents lack the wherewithal to pay for educational expenses (such as private tutoring, textbooks, computers, college tuition, and so forth), which significantly reduces the educational achievement and attainment of their children (Amato 1993). McLanahan primarily focuses on single-mother families not only because women usually retain custody of their children after marital dissolution but also because the economic well-being of women decreases dramatically after divorce. Weitzman (1985) initially estimated that women experience a 73% decrease in their standard of living after divorce, while men enjoy a 42% increase. Although more recent estimates place the rate of economic decline for women somewhere between 13 and 35% (Duncan and Hoffman 1985; Peterson 1996; Sørensen 1992), the direction of the effect remains. Due to low earnings, poor employment status, financially distant fathers, a lack of affordable childcare, meager public assistance programs, and low levels of wealth, single-mother families rank as the poorest of all major demographic groups (Garfinkel and McLanahan 4

7 1986; Hill 1992; McLanahan and Booth 1989). Recognizing the severity of their financial situation, McLanahan and others have shown that the negative effect of living with a single mother on educational achievement and attainment declines significantly when income is held constant (e.g., Boggess 1998; Ploeg 2002; Pong and Ju 2000; Thomson et al. 1994). 3 Although the economic deprivation thesis explains roughly half of the difference in educational attainment between children from divorced or separated homes and married homes (McLanahan and Bumpass 1988), marital disruption may still explain at least some of the remaining difference. For example, recent studies suggest that children from singlefather and step-families have lower educational attainment than children from singlemother families, even though children from single-father and step-parent homes are economically advantaged relative to those from single-mother families (Biblarz and Raftery 1999; Boggess 1998). These studies challenge the economic deprivation thesis because the lower years of schooling of children from single-father and step-families cannot be attributed to poverty. Thus, while the economic deprivation thesis certainly does not close the debate over the causes behind the relationship between marital disruption and children s educational attainment and achievement, it explains the most variation and offers the most empirical support. Yet, despite a growing body of literature that supports the economic deprivation thesis, few studies describe the specific ways in which children from divorced or separated homes are economically deprived and why they matter for educational outcomes. While 3 Additionally, in divorced or separated families, the source of income matters when predicting educational outcomes. Some researches have shown that income in the form of child support can lead to much more positive educational outcomes than income generated from welfare (Knox and Bane 1994). Graham et al. (1994) found that a $1,000 increase in child support increases years of schooling completed by.026, whereas an equal increase from other sources increases it only by.005. And Beller and Chung (1988) argue that children from single-mother families who receive child support obtain more schooling than those who do not. 5

8 researchers have speculated about the mechanisms of economic deprivation, they have not directly measured parental contributions toward their children s educational costs. 4 Some researchers, however, have used college savings as a proxy for parental contributions. For example, Steelman and Powell (1991) found that income constraints make single parents much less likely to save for college than married counterparts. Others have found that the amount of money saved specifically for college varies across racial groups, such that African American and Hispanic families amass fewer college savings than whites and Asian Americans (Churaman 1992; Kao 2002). However, after controlling for socioeconomic status, African American and Hispanic families save just as much as their white counterparts (and sometimes more) (Steelman and Powell 1993). While reported savings are a key indicator of parents willingness to finance college, they are not a direct measure of their contributions. Some parents may contribute to college expenses even though they did not save for them. Other parents may start saving for their children s college costs but liquidate these assets before their children enter college. It is even possible that married and divorced parents have different savings patterns but make similar contributions once their children are in college. Because of these limitations, we argue that the mechanisms of economic deprivation pertaining to educational attainment and marital disruption should be explored further. Are divorced parents actually spending less money on their children s educational resources (such as tuition, books, and computers) than married parents? If they are spending less money on educational resources because they are economically deprived, are 4 However, a recent study using data from Taiwan found that single-parent families spend less on education, but when income is taken into account, the difference dissipates. It also found that single mothers spend the highest proportion of their income on education (Han et al. 2003). 6

9 they also spending a smaller proportion of their income? And how much of the children s educational costs do the parents expenditures cover? To address these questions, we investigate one possible mechanism by which economic deprivation may be detrimental for the educational outcomes of the children of divorced families namely, the financial contributions to college costs made by married and divorced parents. Because students success in college depends largely upon their parents willingness and ability to support them financially, parental contributions is an effective measure of an economic deprivation mechanism that is important for the children s educational outcomes. Using parent-reported financial contributions for college, the present study measures parental contributions as a proportion of their income as well as a proportion of their children s financial need (the cost of college minus all aid). Our purpose is to describe how much married and divorced parents are contributing, focusing on variation across the income distribution, as well as across race and gender groups. DATA & METHODS The data used in this study were obtained from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study of the academic year (NPSAS:96). 5 Although this dataset contains a nationally representative sample of approximately 60,000 students selected from over 1,000 postsecondary education institutions, we focus on a subsample of 2,562 dependent students whose parents were interviewed regarding their financial contributions. Students were eligible to be in the study if they were enrolled at any time during the year in fulltime or part-time academic or vocational courses or programs at eligible institutions, but 5 While NPSAS data from the academic year are available, they do not include information about actual parent contributions, only expected contributions. Therefore, we use NPSAS:96 data. 7

10 those concurrently enrolled in a high school completion program were not eligible. 6 Because this study focuses on parent contributions, students who were not dependent on their parents for financial support were excluded from the analyses. Students were considered financially independent if they met any of the following criteria: 1) they were 24 years old or older, 2) they were veterans of the US Armed Forces, 3) they were enrolled in a graduate or professional program beyond a Bachelor s degree, 4) they were married, 5) they were orphans or wards of the court, or 6) they had legal dependents of their own. Detailed data concerning income, financial aid, tuition, and fees were extracted from institutional records as well as Department of Education financial aid application and loan records. Demographic information such as gender, race and ethnicity, and students grade point averages were obtained from student telephone interviews; and parental information such as parents martial status, education, and financial support provided to children was acquired from a supplementary parent telephone interview administered to a small subsample of 2,562 parents of dependent students. 7 We focus on parents total financial contributions toward their children s college expenses, which were reported by parents. Contributions are based on the sum of the following three amounts: 1) the amount that both parents paid directly to the student s school, 2) the amount that both parents paid directly to the student, and 3) the amount that both parents loaned to the student, which they expected the student to pay back. It is important to note that the parent interview questions regarding the amounts listed above 6 To be eligible for the study, institutions were required to have the following: 1) an education program designed for those who have completed a secondary education, 2) a program of study lasting at least three months, 3) access to the general public, 4) more than just correspondence courses, and 5) a location in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico. 7 While the supplementary parent interviews were not necessarily designed to be a representative sample, we found that the parent subsample did not differ significantly from the total sample in terms of income, financial need, and marital status. 8

11 could be ambiguous for divorced parents. 8 All three questions refer to the parent and his/her spouse without specifying whether divorced parents should include ex-spouses. To illustrate, parents were asked, How much money have [you/you and your spouse] paid directly to [student s name] s school for [his/her] educational expenses for the school year? Based on this wording, it is unclear whether divorced parents should include their ex-spouse s financial contributions. If some divorced parents did not report exspouse contributions, then our measure of parent contributions is underestimated for divorced parents. We will return to this issue after the results are reported. We also consider parents contributions as a proportion of their income. NPSAS income data are unusually precise (and are provided in the form of a continuous measure) because they were obtained from Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) records. For students who did not file a FAFSA, parent-reported income was used. Finally, we consider parents contributions as a proportion of their children s financial need, or the amount of money that students need in order to attend college. This is based on the cost of college minus all aid. More specifically, the sum of all federal, state, and institutional aid (including grants/scholarships, loans, work-study, and other types of aid) is subtracted from the actual cost of college, which is based on tuition and non-tuition costs (including fees, books, supplies, room and board, transportation, and personal expenses). 9 Before reporting the results of these analyses, it is important to highlight several data limitations. First, these data do not address the effect of parent contributions on the child s decision to attend college. Because the NPSAS sample is comprised of students 8 Due to small sample sizes, we do not focus on widowed, separated, or never-married parents. For the same reason, we do not focus on Asian American or American Indian students. 9 This variable also takes into account the number of months students were enrolled and their attendance status. 9

12 who are already in college, these data cannot provide any information about the influence of potential contributions (e.g., parent savings) on the students chances of attending college. 10 Instead, our research question is limited to the effect of marital status on parents contributions toward the college costs of children who are already in college, and we make no claims regarding those who did not attend. Second, because this sample is comprised of college students, they tend to be more advantaged than the US population in general. Seventy eight percent of the students had parents who were married (compared to 60% nationwide in 1996). Seventy seven percent of the students in the sample were non-hispanic white, 12% were non-hispanic black, 7% were Hispanic, and 5% were members of other racial groups. The median student s financial need was about $7,577, and the median student s parents had an income of about $51,000 (compared to a national median of about $35,000 in 1996) and contributed about $4,400 toward their children s college expenses. 11 RESULTS In aggregate, married parents contribute significantly more toward their children s college costs than divorced parents. Compared to divorced parents, married parents contribute just over 2.5 times as many dollars toward college costs ($5,100 vs. $2,000 per year). Of course, this is partly due to the fact that married parents tend to have significantly higher incomes. As shown in Table 1, the median income of married parents 10 While some studies with similar selection issues attempt to correct for this problem using a Heckman selection model which uses variables that strongly affect the chances for observation, this is not possible with NPSAS data because we have no information about those who did not attend college. 11 We use medians instead of means because they tend to be more robust, particularly when dealing with income and other monetary values. When using means, we found that a few observations can be highly influential. 10

13 is almost twice as much as the median income of divorced parents ($58,556 vs. $30,596). As a proportion of their income, married parents contribute about 9%, compared to 7% for divorced parents. While married parents contribute over twice as many dollars as divorced parents, they contribute only a slightly higher proportion of their income. [Table 1 about here.] But these proportions do not take account of the students financial need, which may be lower for the children of divorced parents than for the children of married parents for several reasons. First, the children of divorced parents may attend institutions that cost less if they perceive that they cannot afford to attend a high-cost institution or if they attend less prestigious institutions as a result of not performing as well in high school (Ham 2003; Pong and Ju 2000). Second, given that divorced parents tend to have lower incomes, children of divorced parents may get more financial aid. If either or both of these scenarios are occurring, then even if married and divorced parents contribute an equal proportion of their incomes toward their children s college expenses, married parents may be covering a smaller proportion of their children s financial need. However, Table 1 shows that financial needs are only about 10% lower for the children of divorced parents than for the children of married parents ($6,995 vs. $7,824). Consequently, because married parents contribute more than divorced parents, married parents cover about 70% of their children s financial need, while divorced parents cover only 30%. Therefore, although the financial need is comparable for these two groups of students, the children of divorced parents have to pay a much larger portion of their college costs themselves. Table 2 divides the sample into income quartiles and shows that, with the exception 11

14 of the highest quartile, lower-income divorced parents tend to contribute less toward their children s college costs than married parents, while higher-income divorced parents tend to contribute more than married parents. In the lowest income quartile, divorced parents contribute about 39% less than married parents and give 5% of their income, while married parents give 8% of their income. Married parents in the lowest income quartile cover about 32% of their children s financial need while divorced parents in the same income quartile cover only about 19%. In the second income quartile, however, married and divorced parents contribute approximately the same dollar amount (just over $3,000) and contribute a comparable portion of their incomes (about 7%). Surprisingly, in the third income quartile, divorced parents contribute 28% more than married parents, representing about 12% of their income (compared to 9% for married parents) and covering about 88% of their children s financial need (compared to 70% for married parents). And in the highest income quartile, divorced parents contribute a smaller dollar amount than married parents (19% less), but they contribute a comparable portion of their income and cover a similar portion of their children s financial need. [Table 2 about here.] It is important to note that married and divorced parents have very different income distributions. The frequencies in Table 2 show that 82% of divorced parents are in the lower half of the income distribution, while only 40% of married parents are in the lower half. These very different income distributions make comparisons among high-income parents less reliable, given that there are such few high-income divorced parents. With this caveat in mind, Figures 1-3 compare the median contributions of married and divorced parents whose incomes are less than $60,000. Parents whose incomes are $60,000 or 12

15 above are not shown since there are very few divorced parents in these higher income categories. Figure 1 shows parents contributions in dollars; Figure 2 shows contributions as a proportion of their incomes; and Figure 3 shows contributions as a proportion of their children s financial need. Figure 1 demonstrates that while married parents in the lower income categories (below $40,000) tend to contribute slightly more than divorced parents, divorced parents in the higher income categories ($40,000 and above) tend to contribute much more than married parents. A similar crisscrossing pattern emerges in Figure 2, where married parents in the lower income categories (below $40,000) contribute a larger portion of their incomes than divorced parents, while divorced parents in the higher income categories ($40,000 and above) contribute a larger portion. In Figure 3, married parents in the lower income categories (again, below $40,000) cover a larger portion of their children s financial need than divorced parents, while divorced parents in the highest income categories ($40,000 and above) cover a larger portion of their children s financial need. This means that while the children of lower-income divorced parents face a greater challenge in paying for their college expenses, the children of higher-income divorced parents do not. While it is relatively unusual for divorced parents to have higher incomes, when this occurs, they tend to contribute more toward their children s college costs than married parents. These findings show that analyses of divorced parents contributions must take account of the entire income distribution. [Figures 1-3 about here.] Comparing male and female students, Table 3 shows that although both married and divorced parents contribute more toward females than males, divorced parents contribute significantly more toward females than married parents. While married parents 13

16 contribute about 13% more toward females than males, divorced parents contribute almost twice as much toward females than males. As a proportion of their income, married parents contribute the same toward males and females, but divorced parents contribute a slightly higher proportion toward females. And as a proportion of their children s financial need, married parents cover about 7% more for females than males, while divorced parents cover almost twice as much for females than for males. Thus, divorced parents seem to contribute more toward females than married parents, and divorced parents cover a much larger portion of the financial need of females than males. 12 [Table 3 about here.] Finally, we compare the contributions of married and divorced parents by race. Table 4 shows that although white parents contribute more than black or Hispanic parents with the same marital status, as a proportion of their incomes, all three groups contribute a similar proportion (7-10%). Interestingly, among married parents, whites contribute a slightly higher proportion of their income than black or Hispanic parents, but among divorced parents, blacks and Hispanics contribute slightly more than whites. In addition, married white parents cover a larger portion of their children s financial need than married black or Hispanic parents, but divorced white parents cover a similar portion of their children s financial need as divorced black or Hispanic parents. [Table 4 about here.] All of the tables so far have compared parents contributions by marital status while controlling for a single variable at a time (income, gender, or race/ethnicity). Although these are useful for descriptive purposes, they do not address the many other factors that 12 Note that these are not within-family comparisons. 14

17 could explain the differences in parents contributions by marital status. Table 5 attempts to take account of these factors through a weighted OLS regression predicting the amount parents contribute (in logged dollars). Models 1 and 2 support the patterns described in the previous tables. The coefficients suggest that although divorced parents contribute significantly less than married parents (Model 1), their contributions are no longer significantly lower after controlling for income (Model 2). Model 2 suggests not only that income is a powerful predictor of parent contributions but also that divorced parents in the highest income quartile contribute significantly more than married parents in that income quartile. The interaction term is not only positive and significant but it is larger in magnitude than the coefficient for divorced parents (1.47 vs. -.72). In other words, the positive effect of being a higher-income divorced parent supercedes the negative effect of being divorced. [Table 5 about here.] Model 3 shows that, even after controlling for other factors, income continues to be more important than marital status in determining how much parents contribute and that higher-income divorced parents actually contribute more than higher-income married parents. This pattern holds after taking account of parents education, the number of siblings in college, and student characteristics such as GPA, gender, and race. This evidence suggests that having divorced parents does not uniformly put students at a disadvantage, at least in terms of parent contributions toward college. However, it is important to point out that this study is narrowly focused on students who are already in college. The data do not permit an analysis of the factors that determine whether or not a student goes to college and what type of college that student attends. We expect these 15

18 prior factors to be very important, given that institutional factors play an important role in determining how much parents contribute (analyses not shown). DISCUSSION This study has shown that the economic deprivation thesis can only be addressed through a detailed analysis of parental income one that considers the entire distribution. When using median values, married parents contribute over 2.5 times as many dollars toward their children s college costs as divorced parents; however, both married and divorced parents contribute an equivalent portion of their incomes toward college expenses. Furthermore, a comparison of parents contributions across the income distribution shows that at the lower end of the distribution, married parents tend to contribute slightly more than divorced parents, but at the higher end of the distribution, divorced parents tend to contribute much more than married parents. These findings present a challenge to current social scientific accounts that contend that children from divorced households receive viably less financial assistance than children from married households (e.g., Amato et al. 1995; Grissett and Furr 1994; White 1992). After taking account of income differences, it is clear that divorced parents do not necessarily contribute less than married parents and in some cases they even contribute more, both in absolute dollars and as a proportion of their income or their children s financial need. Moreover, these findings complicate the economic deprivation thesis because divorced and married parents exhibit a crisscrossing pattern of contribution, depending on the position they occupy on the income distribution. Among those with higher incomes, 16

19 we find that taking income into account does not equalize the contributions of married and divorced parents as others have suggested (e.g., McLanahan 1985; Ploeg 2002) but reveals that those expected to contribute less actually contribute more. What could explain why higher-income divorced parents contribute more than higher-income married parents? In what follows, we advance four possible answers. After refuting the first two explanations, we offer two subsequent theoretical explanations informed by recent research in the sociology of the family. Ex-spouse Contributions. One possibility for why higher-income divorced parents contribute more than higher-income married parents is that parents in the higher end of the income distribution were more likely to interpret the survey question such that they included ex-spouse contributions, while parents at the lower end of the distribution were more likely to exclude ex-spouse contributions. Recall that the wording of the survey question asking parents about their financial contributions is unclear about whether divorced parents should include financial contributions from ex-spouses. It is likely that at least some divorced parents excluded their ex-spouse s contributions because the question did not specify that they were to include them. Thus, if at least some divorced parents (of any income) excluded their ex-spouse s contributions, our estimates of divorced parents contributions are almost certainly underestimated. If this is the case, then the contribution gap between married and divorced parents is even smaller in the lower part of the income distribution and even wider in the higher part of the income distribution. This is comparable to lifting the line for divorced parents contributions in Figure 1 to take account of divorced parents who failed to include their ex-spouse s contributions in their response to the survey question, although we would not expect the line to be raised 17

20 substantially since many absent parents (namely fathers) distance themselves and their pocketbooks significantly after divorce (Hill 1992; Seltzer 1994a). In any case, even if divorced parents at the lower end of the income distribution were more likely to exclude their ex-spouse s contributions than divorced parents at the higher end of the income distribution, this scenario cannot explain why higher-income divorced parents contribute more. Remarriage. Another possible explanation has to do with the fact that higherincome divorced parents are more likely to remarry than lower-income divorced parents (Cherlin and Furstenberg 1994). Accordingly, we would expect high-income stepparents to be more likely to contribute toward college costs. High-income children whose parents are divorced may benefit from generous contributions from more than two parents, putting them at a financial advantage over children in the same income bracket whose parents are married. Yet, in our dataset, most stepparents are grouped with married parents; thus, the higher contributions of divorced parents in the higher-income categories cannot be due to step-parents. 13 While stepparents are not the reason why high-income divorced parents contribute more than married parents, they may be the reason why high-income married parents contribute less. In other words, high-income stepparents may hinder the financial contributions of biological parents. Yet, we did not find support for this. Although the median contribution of biological married parents was higher than the median contribution of stepparents who identified as married ($5,200 vs. $3,962), there was no significant change in the median contribution of married parents when stepparents were excluded 13 The five exceptions include two stepparents who identified themselves as divorced, two who identified as separated, and one who identified as never married. 18

21 from the analysis. In fact, when we separated our sample into income groups (by increments of $10,000), we found that the median contribution of married parents either remains the same or marginally decreases when stepparents were excluded. 14 Thus, the presence of stepfamilies in our married category is not reducing the amount married parents contribute. Parenting Strategies of Divorced Parents. With these preliminary explanations discarded, we are now in a position to advance two generative accounts as to why higherincome divorced parents contribute more than higher-income married parents. The first has to do with different parenting styles of divorced parents. Research suggests that, following divorce, nonresident parents (mostly fathers) experience a significant amount of guilt and emotional distress over living apart from their children (Wilbur and Wilbur 1988). Furthermore, they are often criticized by custodial parents and come to feel rejected by their children (Greif and Kristall 1993). To compensate, nonresident parents often spoil their children with money, gifts, and vacation trips (Lund 1987; Stewart 1999), leaving the everyday labor of discipline, caretaking, and development to the custodial parent. We might say that nonresident divorced parents often buy their children s affection while resident parents work for it. 15 But what happens when the child goes off to college? When the child leaves to begin his or her postsecondary education, the nonresident parent can maintain this parenting style with monetary allowances and gift-giving, while the custodial parent loses 14 For example, the median contribution for married parents with an income between $20,000 and $29,999 is $2,300 when stepparents are included and $2,160 when they are excluded (a difference of $140); again, the median contribution for parents with an income between $40,000 and $49,999 is $3,429 when stepparents are included and $3,250 when they are excluded (a difference of $179). 15 Although a good deal of research suggests that nonresident mothers are significantly more involved in their children s lives than are nonresident fathers (Seltzer 1994b), recently, research has suggested that this may not be the case (Stewart 1999). 19

22 his or her ability to work for the child s affection. As a result, the custodial parent may resort to the parenting style of the nonresident parent, buying his or her child s affection. In fact, since divorced parents often compete with one another for their children s affection (Herbert 1996), they may even attempt to surpass each others contributions. As a result, parents with the wherewithal to do so that is, higher-income divorced parents may make larger financial contributions when they are divorced than they would have if they were still married. If this were the case, children of higher-income divorced parents would be financially advantaged over their peers from higher-income married households, which is what our data suggest. Divorce Settlements. Finally, higher-income divorced parents may contribute more than higher-income married parents because of financial arrangements made during the divorce settlement. Parents negotiating the terms of their divorce might be forced to consider the costs of college when their children are still young, long before they might have if they had remained married. Since the majority of couples often negotiate the terms of their separation before they go to court (Mnookin and Kornhauser 1979), divorcing parents could agree to open custodial accounts or extend voluntary child support payments into the college years in order to co-fund their children s postsecondary education. As a result, children with divorced parents may end up acquiring something that children with married parents lack: an agreement securing parental assistance for college, one that is perhaps even legally binding As far as we can tell, there has been no research that empirically analyzes how college expenses are included or excluded from divorce settlements, presumably because researchers attention has centered upon the allocation of child support for children under the age of eighteen. 20

23 Because they have more resources to allocate, divorce settlements of high-income couples tend to be more elaborate than those of low-income couples. Higher-income divorcing couples exchange more property and stipulate higher amounts of child-support than lower-income divorcing couples (Furstenberg and Nord 1985; Weiss and Willis 1993). Following this logic, we can safely assume that higher-income divorced parents might have the wherewithal to include stipulations about funding children s college costs in their divorce settlement, whereas lower-income divorced parents might not. 17 Gender Differences. Parents contributions by the students gender suggest that both married and divorced parents tend to contribute more toward females than males. This should not be interpreted to mean that there are differences between males and females within the same families, as we cannot show this with our data; rather, females in general tend to get larger parent contributions than males. Other researchers have reported similar findings. Although some evidence suggests that parents are more willing to invest in sons than in daughters when it comes to financing college (Steelman and Powell 1991), many researchers have found that parents tend to either distribute their resources equally between sons and daughters or provide more financial support to daughters (Behrman et al. 17 One might assume that parents who offer or receive higher amounts of child support the majority of whom are high-income parents would also be more likely to offer higher amounts of support for their children s college education. To pursue this line of thought, we compared the contributions of divorced parents who received child support with those who did not. Out of the 345 divorced parents in our sample, 103 reported receiving child support (the median amount of child support received was $4,384). When we compared the total contributions, by income quartile, of divorced parents who received child support with those who did not, the results were mixed. While the median contribution of divorced parents who received support in the lowest and highest income quartile was higher than their counterparts who did not receive support, for the middle two quartiles, the reverse was actually the case. The median contribution amount of divorced parents who did not receive child support is listed in front of the amount of those who did by quartiles: lowest quartile ($600 vs. $713); second quartile ($3,122 vs. $2,000); third quartile ($8,150 vs. $7,306); highest quartile ($7,878 vs. $9,500). To put it simply, we did not found a positive relationship between contributions to college and child support. 21

24 1986; Peters 1991; Steelman and Powell 1989). 18 Some researchers have suggested that the price tag for a college education is higher for women than for men (e.g., Ríos-Rull and Sánchez-Marcos 2002); however, the females in our study do not have a significantly greater financial need than the males, so this cannot explain why they get larger parent contributions. Instead, we found that as a proportion of their income, married and divorced parents contribute about the same toward males and females, but divorced parents contribute more toward females than males. In addition, divorced parents cover a much larger portion of the financial need of females than males, while married parents cover only a slightly larger portion of the financial need of females than males. What can explain this difference? Researchers have found that parents are generally more involved in the education of their daughters than their sons (e.g., Carter and Wojtkiewicz 2000), but this does not account for why divorced parents cover a larger portion of their daughters college costs. Perhaps divorced parents, especially single mothers who have experienced the financial uncertainty associated with divorce, make a more concerted effort to invest in their daughters college educations. Yet it seems that is not the case either, since the median contribution of single mothers and single fathers in our sample is exactly the same ($2,000). 19 Indeed, to further our understanding of parental investment in children, social scientists should examine how divorced parents decide to allocate their resources and why they might tend to favor daughters even more than married parents. 18 Incidentally, these findings present a strong challenge to the human capital theories first advanced by Becker (1981) that suggest parents will allocate more to their sons in hopes of maximizing their future income. Accordingly, economists have begun to develop household bargaining models upon the assumption that parents value equity and fairness (see, for example, Echevarria and Merlo 1999; Farmer and Tiefenthaler 1995). Jacobs (1996: 165-7) offers an extended critique of human capital approaches as they relate to gender inequality in higher education. 19 For our purposes, we define a single parent as a divorced parent who has not remarried. 22

25 We also note that the ratio of daughters to sons is larger for divorced households than for married households (see Table 3). Our data suggest that one possible explanation is that because daughters get more support than sons in divorced households, sons of divorced parents might not be as encouraged to attend college as daughters. There are two other possible explanations. First, research on child development suggests that boys experience more behavioral and emotional problems than girls following divorce (Coley 1998; Hetherington et al. 1982), and sociologists have found that behavioral and emotional problems diminish the probability of graduating from high school and attending college (McLeod and Kaiser 2004). 20 Thus, sons of divorced parents may perform worse in educational arenas vis-à-vis daughters of divorced parents, lessening their chances of being admitted to college. Second, because parents with male children are more likely to remain married than those with female children (or no children) (Morgan et al. 1988), divorced parents, in general, may have a higher proportion of daughters relative to married parents. 21 Racial Differences. Parents contributions by race suggest that in absolute dollars, whites contribute more than blacks or Hispanics with the same marital status, but all three groups contribute comparable portions of their incomes (by marital status). This finding complements Steelman and Powell s (1993) observation that once background characteristics are held constant, minority parents make just as strong of an effort to save for college as white parents, and it challenges accounts that argue that black and Hispanic parents are less financially invested in their children s education than white and Asian American parents (e.g., Churaman 1992; Kao 2002). Although black and Hispanic parents 20 However, some research has produced the opposite conclusion, finding that daughters experience more problems following divorce than sons (e.g., Needle et al. 1990). 21 Recently, however, researchers have challenged the hypothesis that sons reduce the risk of marital disruption more than daughters (Diekmann and Schmidheiny 2004). 23

26 in our sample had smaller median incomes and therefore contributed fewer dollars than their white counterparts, their limited resources did not prevent them from contributing a similar portion of their incomes as their white counterparts with more resources. 22 This is especially true for minority divorced parents. One final cautionary note: These findings only pertain to a select group of students that has already applied to college, has been accepted by one or more institutions, and has enrolled and is attending college. All those who were selected out at any point before or during this process are beyond the scope of this study. Thus, any negative consequences associated with having divorced parents occurring prior to or during the transition to college are not captured by our data (see Thomas and Heck 2001). Many questions remain regarding the contributions of married and divorced parents. Among divorced parents, how much is each parent contributing? Do biological mothers and fathers as well as stepparents contribute differently? How do divorced parents determine how much each will contribute? Future research should study possible differences in mothers and fathers contributions and the processes by which divorced parents make these decisions. CONCLUSION This paper used parents contributions toward their children s college costs to investigate one economic deprivation mechanism by which children from divorced households might face financial disadvantages relative to children from married 22 Of course, contributing a similar portion has a different meaning for those in the lower end of the income distribution, since giving up 7-9% of the family income represents a greater sacrifice if it requires foregoing essential goods. At the higher end of the distribution, giving up 7-9% is likely associated with foregoing non-essential goods. 24

27 households. We found that lower-income divorced parents contribute slightly less than lower-income married parents, while higher-income divorced parents contribute much more than higher-income married parents. To be sure, divorced parents are doing their part to help fund their children s college costs; however, children from lower-income divorced homes still face significant challenges when it comes to financing their education. In aggregate, children whose parents are divorced must shoulder about 70% of college expenses themselves while their peers from married households need to only come up with 30% of the cost. In terms of unmet financial need, the most disadvantaged group in our study is comprised of children from divorced households in the lowest income quartile. Financial aid and parental contributions only cover 20% of these students financial need, leaving them to bear the lion s share of the high costs of college alone. This very likely has a negative effect on the type of college they attend as well as their educational performance, since they probably cannot afford important school supplies such as textbooks, computers, or tutors, and they probably spend a large portion of their time working instead of studying. Our analyses indicate that all students, even those from lower-income families who receive the highest amounts of financial aid, depend largely on their parents contributions to finance college costs, and the only students who are having all their financial needs met are those with parents in the highest income quartile. Recent shifts in financial aid policy are making it harder for students to qualify for aid and are requiring families to contribute more money toward the cost of college (Potter and Burd 2005; Winter 2005). Judging from the results of this study, the only students who will not feel the negative effects of these changes will be the most economically privileged, while students with parents in the 25