College Freshmen Rate Money as Chief Goal

What do today’s college freshmen really want? Is it to become an “authority” in their field? Not really. How about winning the recognition of their peers? Nope.

What their young hearts really want is: money.

The nation’s largest survey of freshmen suggests that while America’s brightest teenagers care less about status and authority than those who preceded them, they embrace one common desire. A whopping 73.4% of America’s 1.1 million freshmen want to be very well off financially, according to survey results released today.

“It used to be that money and status went together,” said Alexander W. Astin, a UCLA professor who founded the survey in 1966. Not anymore.

The annual American Freshmen Survey, a joint project of the American Council on Education and UCLA’s Education Research Institute, is the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive assessment of student attitudes and behavior.

The survey, conducted last fall, is based on the responses of 269,413 students at 434 four-year colleges and universities. The data have been statistically adjusted to be representative of 1.1 million freshmen entering these traditional four-year institutions.

Measuring life’s objectives, the survey results suggest that responsibility, recognition and authority are less appealing to today’s freshmen.

Only 59.7% of the freshmen believe it is essential or very important to become an “authority” in their chosen field--a drop of 19 percentage points since 1987. Getting recognition from colleagues has dropped to a 23-year low of 51.2%.

And only 36.9% want to be in charge, “having administrative responsibility over the work of others.”

Rather, money has emerged as students’ top objective.

Just listen to Brett Bailey, an 18-year-old in knee-length shorts and wraparound sunglasses, now in his first year at USC.

“Yeah, I want a lot of money,” said the business accounting major from Seal Beach. “To be the top of my field? That’s not all that important to me. To have the respect of my peers? That’s not that big of a deal. It doesn’t have to be millions, but I want to be well-supported.”

The allure of the almighty dollar is contributing to shifting career choices. The survey shows that freshmen planning to become doctors continued to decline to about 6%, compared with 7.6% of freshmen in 1995.

Why? Just ask the students. “You cannot make as much money being a doctor,” said one USC student. “The HMOs have messed it all up.”

Another said, “Shows like ‘ER’ have deglamorized medicine. Doctors have hard lives and don’t live in big houses.”

As overall interest in medicine has declined, those interested in medicine are now predominantly women. Seven percent of the women said they wanted to become doctors, compared with 4.8% of men. This contrasts with 1971, when 7.1% of the men and only 2.4% of women planned a career as a physician.

Astin said this could be one of the most remarkable long-term reversals ever uncovered in the 35 years of surveying freshmen. “This is going to be a real change in our society,” he said. “Men and women approach medicine differently. The changes in medical care will be something to watch.”

Here are some of the trends:

* Freshmen who smoke cigarettes dropped for a second consecutive year to 10%, reversing a long, steady climb since the mid-1980s.

* Frequent or occasional beer drinking also continued to decline, to 48.3% of freshmen. That’s remarkably lower than the peak in 1982, when 73.7% of freshmen hoisted an occasional brew.

* Support for the legalization of marijuana grew. Slightly more than one-third of freshmen--34.2%--believe smoking marijuana should be legal, a significant liberalization of attitude since the record low of 16.7% in 1989, but far below the high point in 1977, when 51.3% favored making pot legal.

* Opposition to the death penalty rose sharply this year. Slightly more than 31% agreed that the death penalty should be abolished, compared with 26.7% in 1999 and 24.1% in 1998. Yet this level of opposition pales when compared with the anti-death sentence fervor of their parents’ generation. In 1971, 60.2% of entering freshmen opposed capital punishment.

* Support for gay rights continues to spiral upward. A record 56% of freshmen believe that “same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status.” Only 27.2% of freshmen supported the statement: “It is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships.” That’s a drop from 1987, when slightly more than half--50.4%--of freshmen supported anti-gay laws.

* Freshmen continue to show little interest in politics. Only 28.1% said they keep up with political affairs, continuing a slide since 1966, when 60.3% of college students closely followed politics. The survey was taken before November’s photo-finish presidential election.

For the first time, the survey excluded the responses of community college students in its analysis.

Most freshmen fill out the survey during orientation or just as they enter school. For that reason, many responses reflect more on their senior year in high school than their experiences in college.

The students report a continued rise in their high school grades. Almost 50% reported earning A averages in high school, continuing the trend from 1968, when a mere 17.6% earned A averages.

Only 6.6% of freshmen reported C averages, down from 23.1% in 1968.

“It is difficult to imagine that C grades once outnumbered A grades,” Astin said, noting that freshmen get six times as many A’s as Cs.

All these good grades don’t mean that students work harder.

Only 36% reported studying or doing homework six or more hours a week in the past year--the lowest percentage since the question was first asked in 1987. That year, 47% reported studying six or more hours weekly.

As expected, use of computers continues to go up. A record 78.5% reported using computers regularly in the year before attending college.

Finally, young women seem to be pulling even with men--77.8% of women compared with 79.5% of men reported frequent computer use.

Yet a new question reveals that women have a lower level of confidence in their computer skills. Only 23.2% of women, compared with 46.4% of men, rated their computer skills as either “above average” or “within the top 10%” of society.

Furthermore, 9.3% of the men, as opposed to 1.8% of the women, said they planned to pursue careers in computer programming, representing the largest gap in the history of the survey.

Linda Sax, an education professor and director of the 35th annual survey, finds the trend disturbing for a work force that is increasingly dependent on technical proficiency.

“Although everyone is using computers, there is this growing gender gap,” she said. Men’s interest in computer science has increase dramatically; women’s interest has not budged.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Allure of Money

Freshmen entering America’s colleges and universities fill out a lengthy survey that assesses their attitudes and beliefs. In one section, students indicated how important certain objectives are to them. Percentages indicate the proportion of students who find these statements either “essential” or “very important.”

*

Being very well off financially: 73.4%

Raising a family: 73.1%

Helping others who are in difficulty: 61.7%

Becoming an authority in my field: 59.7%

Obtain recognition from colleagues for contributions to my field: 51.2%

Integrating spirituality into my life: 45.1%

Developing a meaningful philosophy of life: 42.4%

Becoming successful in a business of my own: 39.3%

Influencing social values: 37.6%

Having administrative responsibility for the work of others: 36.9%

Helping to promote racial understanding: 30.8%

Keeping up to date with political affairs: 28.1%

Participating in a community action program: 22.7%

Influencing the political structure: 17.6%

Becoming involved in programs to clean up the environment: 17.5%

Making a theoretical contribution to science: 16.0%

Creating artistic work (painting, sculpture, decorating, etc.): 14.8%

Writing original works (poems, novels, etc.): 14.7%

Becoming accomplished in performing arts (acting, dancing, etc.): 14.5%

*

Note: Survey results are based on responses of 269,413 students entering 434 of America’s four-year colleges and universities. The data have been statistically adjusted to be representative of the 1.1 million freshmen entering four-year institutions.

Source: The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2000, American Council on Education, UCLA