Abstract
This study examined the influence of early marriage on academic achievement of female undergraduate students in Rivers State owned universities. To achieve the purpose of the study, the researcher developed three objectives of the study, three research questions and three hypotheses that guided the conduct of the study. The research design used for the study was a descriptive survey design. The population of the study consisted of 277 married female undergraduate students in faculty of education Rivers State University and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. The sample size of the study was 277 married female students. The study made use of census sampling procedure where all the entire population size is used for sample. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled “Influence of Early Marriage on Academic Achievement of Female Undergraduate Students Questionnaire”. The data collected was analyzed using frequency table, weighted mean score and standard deviation for the research questions while the null hypotheses were tested using z-test statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data analysis, the finding of the study revealed that frequency, overburdened with domestic work, overburdened with child rearing, poverty and poor health resulting from early marriage affect the academic achievement of the students. Based on the findings, the study recommended that, it is recommended that government should organize awareness and orientation campaign on how to alleviate poverty through empowerment, it is recommended that school management organize enlightenment campaign for the female students on how maternal mortality affect the educational achievement, it is recommended that government should design a programme that would help students on how to prevent early pregnancy.