What is the #1 Objective in Life Among College Freshmen?

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Som Seng

UMassOnline Som Seng UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute has just completed a survey of nearly 220,000 first-time, full-time freshmen at 297 four-year institutions to find out their goals for attending college. While the pool of respondents did not include online students or schools, when you find out what traditional freshmen are thinking, you’ll probably guess that online students — especially working adults — feel the same way or perhaps even more so. Can you guess what’s on their mind?

Here’s the answer according to a USA TODAY news item which reported on the survey’s findings: …a record 78.1% identified “being well-off financially” as a very important objective. That’s higher than any other item on the list of choices, including “raising a family” (74.7%) or “helping others in difficulty” (69.1%).

The news story, by Mary Beth Marklein, provides a range of other, related and very interesting survey findings in an attempt to explain this focus on personal financial gain. Basically, these include student views about the current economy and its effect on their own households where more fathers and mothers, for example, are out of work than in previous surveys. You can read the full account here.