Social Support, Coping, Life Satisfaction, and Academic Success Among College Students

Although more students are enrolling in college than ever before, far too many fail to complete their degrees. The financial, personal, and societal costs of leaving college can be high. The current study explored the relationship between 2 key psychosocial factors, social support and coping, and 2 measures of psychological well-being; specifically, life satisfaction and perceptions of the campus environment, both of which have been related to grade point average (GPA) and student retention. Path analysis results indicated that social support (B = .31, p < .001) and life satisfaction (B = .36, p = .005) were positively related to perception of university environment, whereas the use of problematic coping strategies (B = −.42, p = .003) was negatively related to perception of university environment. In addition, higher class year (B = −.11, p = .004) and first-generation student status (B = −.25, p = .013) were negatively related to GPA. These findings suggest that university efforts to help students develop positive social support resources and effective coping strategies have the potential to increase both psychological well-being and academic success.