College students often experience and report feeling stressed within the context of their daily lives. This empirical study examines the effect of personal stress on academic performance in an introductory economics course at a representative regional university. 105 students were surveyed and completed a standardized psychometric instrument revealing the extent of perceived stress. The resulting data were analyzed using an educational production function estimated by ordinary least squares. After controlling for student demographic characteristics, academic attributes, social environmental factors, and student confidence, the results reveal that measured personal stress significantly reduced student academic performance.