Academic performance and college students' subjective well-being

Academic performance stands as a pivotal metric for schools in evaluating the proficiency of students, and it serves as a targeted objective for students to strive for. Based on the survey data of 327 undergraduate students, this paper empirically examines the association between college students' academic performance and their subjective well-being. The results show that the average subjective well-being of college students is situated in the lower mid-range, with an observable tendency toward decline over time. The subjective well-being of college students is associated with both their absolute and relative grade point average (GPA). Specifically, the higher the GPA, the stronger students' subjective well-being. However, students' subjective well-being will be significantly reduced if their GPA is ranked lower. The association between academic performance and college students' subjective well-being exhibits heterogeneity across gender, grade and place of origin. Specifically, the association between academic performance and subjective well-being is more pronounced among females and low-grade students than that of males and high-grade students, but dose not significantly differ by place of origin. We additionally find several other factors that affect students' subjective well-being: joining school clubs, liking their majors, being extroverted and maintaining good health also significantly improves students' subjective well-being. Given the cross-sectional design and single-institution sample, these findings should be interpreted as associational rather than causal.