Forget "Animal House." - fraternity/sorority members could be more likely to stay in school, according to study

American Demographics, July, 1998 by Shelly Reese

Fraternities and sororities, long maligned as bastions of sophomoric behavior and all-night beer bashes, may serve an important academic purpose after all.

Members of the Greek system may be more likely than other undergraduates to stay in school, according to a new survey by the Center for Advanced Social Research (CASR) at the University of Missouri-Columbia. CASR researchers interviewed 653 former University of Missouri students. Only 18 percent of those who left without degrees identified themselves as members of the Greek system, a 28 percent higher retention rate than expected, according to CASR director Esther Thorson.

What's more, studies sponsored by the Research Initiative of the National Panhellenic Conference and the National Interfraternity Conference, which represent 92 percent of fraternities and sororities, found Greek alums tend to be more generous than their non-Greek classmates. Fully 22 percent of fraternity alumni and sorority alumnae reported giving their alma maters between $500 and $1,000 in 1996, compared with 4.2 percent of non-Greeks. Eleven percent contributed $1,000 to $5,000, compared with 1.4 percent of non-Greeks.

There may be a few threads of truth in the tattered fraternity and sorority stereotypes, though. When CASR researchers asked more than 1,500 sorority and fraternity members from the 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, and 1994 whether they agreed with the statement, "Alcohol was abused when I was in college," the number who agreed increased regularly between 1945 and 1994.

Greek-organization members from 1965 through 1994 were also generally more dissatisfied with their academic experience and relations with college personnel than non-Greeks, according to the Research Initiative data. Dissatisfaction was highest among Greek men. Separate, independent studies conducted by the University of Missouri-Columbia found a similar sentiment among undergraduate fraternity and sorority members. While reporting greater social satisfaction than non-Greeks, they too were less satisfied with their academic experiences than non-Greeks.

For more information, contact Lissa Bradford at the National Panhellenic Conference; telephone (615) 352-3429, or Jonathan Brant at the National Interfraternity Conference; telephone (317) 872-1112.