Using the perspective of self-determination theory, we examined college students' motivation orientation as a mediator of the relationship between parenting style and life satisfaction or GPA. The sample was drawn from a medium size university in the northeast of the USA (N = 432). While controlling for gender, age, and ethnicity, we used structural equation modeling and found that all three motivation types (intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation) act as partial mediators of the relationship between authoritative parenting and life satisfaction, whereas amotivation acts as a partial mediator of the relationship between authoritarian parenting and life satisfaction. Although we did not find support that motivation types act as mediators between perceived parenting style and GPA, we did find that the external and the introjected motivations, as well as the intrinsic motivation to know significantly and negatively correlate with GPA, whereas the identified extrinsic motivation and the intrinsic motivation to accomplish significantly and positively correlate with GPA. Our results imply that both perceived parenting style and motivation types are important and inter-related factors for the wellbeing and performance of college students.