Thirty- nine students at a four-year university participated in this two-part study. One part investigated the relationship between maternal education and vocabulary while also looking at the relationship between vocabulary and academic success. The second portion looked at the relationship between vocabulary and word learning. Results from the study indicate that vocabulary knowledge is significantly correlated with GPA and students' ability to learn words in a limited amount of time. Students with higher vocabulary scores earned higher gain scores and GPA. Maternal education was not significantly correlated with PPVT scores, contrary to what prior literature would suggest.