There goes what your mother has been telling you.

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A new research paper confirms that everything that your mother told you growing up is a lie because the pretty people always win.

According to the report, with the womp-womp inducing title In School, Good Looks Hurt (But They Mostly Help), attractive high school kids end up earning more money than the normals. Women with above average looks reportedly made 8% more while below-average looking women had a 4% penalization. While an attractive man earned just 4% more, men who fell below average on the looks scale were docked 13%. The study suggests a possible cause for the wage disparity could be the fact that people rated pretty people as having more intelligence, better personalities, and a higher potential for success … and if you build it, they will come.

As much as you might want this research paper’s findings to pump your gas one day, a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research called “Popularity” implies that people’s high school social status also has a “sizable effect” on adult earnings.

So… was Revenge of the Nerds a lie?