A student’s academic performance in higher education is influenced by a countless number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We begin a discussion on what the students bring with them to class and how that impacts their learning and performance. As future academics and teachers we can only control and affect the learning of students at the university, but understand- ing them as individuals with a life beyond university may help us apply the learning theories available to help them improve their academic performance. We study the impact of four main factors stemming from the socioeconomic status(SES) of an individual i.e. personality, age, gender and race and dis- cuss how each affects the academic performance in the context of higher education.