The main purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between perceived the authoritarian parenting style and academic achievement among college students. Specifically, it is hypothesized that authoritarian parenting would indirectly affect the academic achievement of college students through self-differentiation level and career decision-making self-efficacy. 283 college students, after the consideration of their grade and gender, were selected for this study as participants. Methods describing the primary analytical technique of Structural Equation Modeling were used for the study. The results demonstrate that an authoritarian parenting style negatively affected the academic achievement of college students. There are mediation effects of self-differentiation and career decision-making self-efficacy between the perceived authoritarian parenting style and academic achievement among college students. The findings imply that the positive development of adult children requires more egalitarian parenting styles than those used on early adolescents. Next, for female students, specialized career counseling programs focusing on reducing psychological career barriers and career stress are needed. Lastly, it is implied that parenting styles used on adult children in Korea may differ from Western styles. Therefore, it may be difficult to explain the relationship between parents and adult children with a traditional theoretical framework.