Are College Freshmen Under More Stress Than Ever Before?
SodaHead Living
2011/01/28 12:00:00
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52 votes
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We recently told you that the first two years of college are virtually worthless. Now there's more bad news: The emotional health of college freshmen has sunk to the lowest level in 25 years, according to The New York Times.
Why? You guessed it -- it's the economy, stupid.
In a survey of more than 200,000 incoming full-time students at four-year colleges, the percentage of students rating themselves as “below average” in emotional health rose. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who said their emotional health was above average fell to 52 percent. It was 64 percent in 1985.
"More students are arriving on campus with problems, needing support, and today’s economic factors are putting a lot of extra stress on college students, as they look at their loans and wonder if there will be a career waiting for them on the other side," Brian Van Brunt, director of counseling at Western Kentucky University and president of the American College Counseling Association, told the Times.
In other words, today's kids feel they are less likely to put that four-year degree to good use in obtaining a decent job.
“Students know their generation is likely to be less successful than their parents’, so they feel more pressure to succeed than in the past,” Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University, told the Times. “These days, students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage."
It doesn't help to see mom and dad out of work. And who's paying the tuition bills?
“Paternal unemployment is at the highest level since we started measuring,” John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at U.C.L.A.’s Higher Education Research Institute, which does the annual freshman survey, told the Times.
Another fascinating side note: Every year, the survey finds that women have a less positive view of their emotional health than men, and that gap has widened.
Kind of makes you long for the days of worrying about the "freshman 15."
Why? You guessed it -- it's the economy, stupid.
In a survey of more than 200,000 incoming full-time students at four-year colleges, the percentage of students rating themselves as “below average” in emotional health rose. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who said their emotional health was above average fell to 52 percent. It was 64 percent in 1985.
"More students are arriving on campus with problems, needing support, and today’s economic factors are putting a lot of extra stress on college students, as they look at their loans and wonder if there will be a career waiting for them on the other side," Brian Van Brunt, director of counseling at Western Kentucky University and president of the American College Counseling Association, told the Times.
In other words, today's kids feel they are less likely to put that four-year degree to good use in obtaining a decent job.
“Students know their generation is likely to be less successful than their parents’, so they feel more pressure to succeed than in the past,” Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University, told the Times. “These days, students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage."
It doesn't help to see mom and dad out of work. And who's paying the tuition bills?
“Paternal unemployment is at the highest level since we started measuring,” John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at U.C.L.A.’s Higher Education Research Institute, which does the annual freshman survey, told the Times.
Another fascinating side note: Every year, the survey finds that women have a less positive view of their emotional health than men, and that gap has widened.
Kind of makes you long for the days of worrying about the "freshman 15."
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27coll...
Top Opinion
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alexhead 2011/01/28 20:07:02
The people who are stressed out right now are those who like me already graduated and can't get a job with their degree but still have to pay back those student loan or how about this single parents trying to feed their kids or the people living on the streets with no roof over their heads and no food in their stomachs. We are all have our stress in our day to day lives... What we need to do is stop crying and be thankful for what we do have even if it is just working at McDonald's! Many don't have even that and remember someone out there has it worse than you. I know my life didn't work out how I had planned but I am thankful everyday for what I have.
We need these new minds to come into the workforce with fresh ideas to find those niches. They may not start out making what they expected, but they're going to have to be tough.
I've seen about a billion Obama stickers hanging off the back of old people's bumpers. The youth vote rarely, if it ever even has, drives in a winner. They were certainly part of the equation of Obama getting elected, but they weren't the primary reason.
So noone else deserve to beat the responsibility of this Nightmare? Noone else voted in this election?