An economist taking a new look at existing data suggests that gay men do incrementally better at college than straight men, while bisexual women do worse than their peers.
According to a new study, gay male college students are better motivated, get better grades, and are more likely to seek out a mentor to aide in their education.
"The thing that really comes out (in the data) is that gay men see academic work as more important than heterosexual men," said study author Christopher Carpenter, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine. "They were 1.41 times more likely to say their academic work was important. "That could explain the GPA effect," he added. "It's plausible that if gay men perceive their academic work as more important, then they're trying harder." Gay men also spend 40 to 50 percent more time doing volunteer work or participating in student organizations, according to Carpenter's findings. "It's possible that these organizations they belong to could include fraternities," he said. "But I doubt that, because gay men were less likely to say participating in parties was important to them." Another possible factor in their success rate: Gay male students were about 13 percent more likely than straight male students to report they had a faculty member or administrator they could talk to about a problem.
One more via JMG.
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