The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) did a recent study that showed there is a positive link between high school journalism programs and academic performance. In the study of 31,000 students, it was found that journalism students scored higher than non-journalism students in a number of areas including: Overall grade point average in high school, ACT Composite score, ACT English, college freshman GPA and college freshman first English course grade.

In addition to the higher GPAs and test scores, journalism students were more involved in extra-curricular activities and they developed into leaders.