University of Oregon economists found that when a college football team is successful, students do less studying, more partying and their grades start to fumble.
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Male students were more likely than their female peers to increase alcohol consumption -- and decrease studying -- when their teams fared well.
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The authors tracked the fall grade-point averages for non-athlete undergraduates at Oregon from 1999 to 2007. They pored over nearly 30,000 transcripts of students. The findings revealed that three extra wins for the Ducks football team in any given year caused a drop in male GPAs that's about as steep as the one you'd expect if they had scored 27 points lower on their SATs, according to the study. The researchers said they kept in mind variables such as grade inflation and courseload.
The phenomenon of dropping grades is only present in fall quarters, which coincide with the football season, the authors said.
