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Shacking up means splitting up, especially among the low-educated
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Cohabiting leads couples to divorce quicker. And this is especially true when couples have low education. - photo by Herb Scribner
Living with your significant other before marriage isnt a good idea for couples who want to stay together for the long term. A new study from the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University found that cohabitation before marriage often causes married couples to separate.

Education plays a role, too. One of the major findings in the study is that couples without a college degree who cohabited before marriage are the most likely to separate five years after marriage.

Couples with less than a high school degree have a 42 percent chance of separating five years down the road, whereas couples who have a high school diploma or GED have a 54 percent chance. This has been the case since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, couples who have a college degree or more have a 34 percent likelihood of separating five years down the road after cohabiting. Though less than other education levels, this is still an increase from the 1980s, when those couples had a 29 percent chance of separating.

Premarital cohabitation has increased overall since the 1980s. Lois Collins of Deseret News National reported in January that cohabiting has nearly doubled in the last 25 years and has been most popular among older and more educated Americans, Collins reported.

"We thought maybe the number had plateaued," Wendy D. Manning, co-director of the National Center for Family and Marriage, told Collins, "but it continues to rise. Now about two-thirds have ever cohabited. That's really striking."

Separation and divorce, which can be caused by cohabitation, has taken a toll on American families, too. Divorce has been linked to cause chronic stress among adults, which can lead to heart attacks, high blood pressure and cardiovasular disease, as I wrote earlier this month.

Divorce has also been linked to hurting children and adolescents emotionally. Carl E. Pickhardt, Ph.D., of Psychology Today wrote that children's lives are forever changed by divorce as it presents new challenges that children have to face every day.

"Divorce introduces a massive change into the life of a boy or girl no matter what the age," Pickhardt wrote for Psychology Today. "Witnessing loss of love between parents, having parents break their marriage commitment, adjusting to going back and forth between two different households, and the daily absence of one parent while living with the other, all create a challenging new family circumstance in which to live. In the personal history of the boy or girl, parental divorce is a watershed event. Life that follows is significantly changed from how life was before."
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Groups hand out scholarships
RH theater scholarship
Richmond Hill High School senior Jacey Shanholtzer shows her Dawn Harrington Berry Spotlight Award, which was awarded by the Richmond Hill Community Theatre and includes a $500 scholarship. With her are Tom Harris, Ashlee Farris, Brett Berry and Kim Diebold. The award was created in memory of Dawn Harrington Berry, a long time RHCT member and president who died in 2016. - photo by Photo provided.

Three reports recently presented scholarships

Richmond Hill High School senior Jacey Shanholtzer received the Dawn Harrington Berry Spotlight Award, which was awarded by the Richmond Hill Community Theatre and includes a $500 scholarship. The award was created in memory of Dawn Harrington Berry, a long time RHCT member and president who died in 2016.

Garden Club

The Richmond Hill Garden Club recently awarded a $1,000 scholarship to Katherine Wood and a $500 scholarship to Carly Vargas, both seniors graduating from Richmond Hill High School.

The awards were presented May 8 during Honors Night at RHHS.

Wood plans to attend Green Mountain College in Vermont and major in environmental studies.

Vargas plans to attend Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, to pursue a degree in either environmental studies or biology.

The garden club awards a $1,000 scholarship annually to a local high school senior who plans to major in a field related to environmental concerns, plants and/or gardening.

This year, due to having two exceptional candidates, the garden club awarded an additional $500 scholarship.

Exchange Club

The Exchange Club of Richmond Hill recently named Caroline Odom as its student of the year.

The club each month during the school year names a student of the month, and the student of the year is chosen from among those winners.

Awards are based on academic performance, community involvement and leadership.

Monthly winners receive $100, with the annual winner getting a $1,000 scholarship.

The Exchange Club has been recognizing students for more than 30 years.

Odom will go on to compete in the Georgia District Exchange Club against students from across the state.

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