CNBC has an article on college freshman entitled "College Freshmen: Life Sucks":
Why does life suck for these freshman? According to the author of the article:
This is called growing up, but in our youth oriented society, where the self-indulgent rule and the self-sufficient are suckers, it's no wonder these college freshman are so miserable. Maybe if the rewards for being a grown-up were greater and the rewards for acting like a self-indulgent teen well into your 30's were less, we would see fewer miserable college freshman.
Maybe these college freshman and their parents should take a look at Diane West's The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization
to get some perspective on why they are so unhappy.
College freshmen are more miserable than they have been in 25 years.
That's not an opinion: The New York Times is reporting this, based on new survey of more than 200,000 college students.
Why does life suck for these freshman? According to the author of the article:
In a couple of years you'll have to get a real job. And you'll have to pay rent.
Paying rent, especially in New York City, is awful. But what's worse than paying rent is the fact that you won't live in a dorm—surrounded, all hours of the day and night, by attractive members of the opposite sex. (Or, the same-sex: Whatever you're into.)
No one is going to 'force' you to read anything interesting—like philosophy or sociology. You're going to listen to the music you love a lot less. Colors will seem less bright.
But the worst part of all is this: People you know to be complete idiots will make a lot more money than you do.
You will run into them over the years from time to time.
And you'll have to pretend you like them—because that's what adults do.
They'll probably tell you about their 'careers'. If they're married, they'll almost certainly tell you about their husbands or wives. (And heaven help you if they have children.)
If your old college acquaintances are more awful than usual, they'll tell you about the beach house they just bought—and possibly even about their 401K or stock options.
It will make you wonder how you can even bear it.
Yes, as the great 20th Century philosopher Ally Sheedy once observed: "When you grow up, your heart dies."
This is called growing up, but in our youth oriented society, where the self-indulgent rule and the self-sufficient are suckers, it's no wonder these college freshman are so miserable. Maybe if the rewards for being a grown-up were greater and the rewards for acting like a self-indulgent teen well into your 30's were less, we would see fewer miserable college freshman.
Maybe these college freshman and their parents should take a look at Diane West's The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization
to get some perspective on why they are so unhappy.
posted by Helen at 6:56 AM
51 Comments:
Yeah, this entitlement crap has worn a bit thin, eh? Everyone under the age of 40 seems to be infected with it."Oh, crap, I'm going to have to take care of myself some day."
What entitlements do college freshmen have?
But the post is very misleading. I can not speak for the CNN article. But the NY Times made it clear in its survey that the job market looks very bleak for those in college and preparing to enter that market, and that, in large measure, is a cause for bleakness. Can that real issue be so readily dismissed by snarky comments?
I loved college so much I stayed for 6 years. I think these kids have a lack of vision.
Trey
fred we agree. The big government people have so fracked the economy that things are bleak for graduates. Since you feel their pain, join me in voting for small government, tea party supported candidates.
Trey
Fred, do you mean to say that the class of 2012 has more to worry about than the class 1932?
I suppose, after they've rolled up a shit load debt to get a degree in...what again? sociology? social work? art? womyn's studies? I can see your point. They've had a 4, 5 or 6 year ride to this point and now they actually have to go out and work for a living? except that their degree probably doesn't qualify them for anything the couldn't have done when they where in high school. And adding insult to injury, they'll probably have to move in with mom and dad again.
I've become found of this phrase: suck it up, buttercup.
Every time I post a link this comment section deletes it.
Try this article on the same subject:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/la-me-college-freshmen-20110127,0,374822.story
It's the economy, poor job market and unemployed parents are what is creating stress in the college freshman.
Also, from the article:
Nearly 39% of women said they were often overwhelmed, more than twice the share of the men. Overall, more than 29% said they had felt such stress, up 2 percentage points from the year before.
The gender gap, Pryor speculated, may be attributed to what young people do at home. "The guys are spending more time in stress-relieving activities, like watching TV and playing video games. The girls are more likely to be helping out with chores at home," he said, citing responses to other questions in the survey.
If the author of the article was being satirical, he'd be spot on. Unfortunately, I think he's serious. How did we get to this point that being an adult is a bad thing?
I think the rewards for being an adult are great enough already. It's just that too many look at the downside of growing old too. Adults have more freedom than teens and college age kids. That freedom tends to grow every year. So many are addicted to material wealth, i.e. fancy apartments, big TVs, luxury/performance cars, big houses, on and on, that freedom and other more esoteric values are ignored and forgotten.
Yes, the economy is bleak, but if you focus more on what you're going to do than what you going to have, you'll be happier.
BTW - My youngest son will be a college freshman next year. Just got a scholarship to play football. He's real happy because it's about what he's doing.
Agree w/Fred.
@Darth- If your Class of 1932 you should be back in diapers by now and take babyboomers with you. Take care of yourself with Social Security and corporate welfare while you left the youth with cleaning up your mess. Biggest bunch of baby whiners in history. Notice you posted on a blog from a Dr. w/Psy. degree of which I will not be following. Thankful to read most of the comments here are like Fred.
-41 yr old
@WoooHooo,
Way to miss the point. He didn't say he was in the class of 1932. Simply put, did the class of 1932 (you know, in the middle of the great depression), have more or less stress than today's graduates?
We're the same age, but I see you don't really get the point.
@Darth, well stated.
@Berk-Sounds like I hit a nerve, my point is that 1932 and 2012 are no comparison here. Maybe you could read the original article.
"Yes, as the great 20th Century philosopher Ally Sheedy once observed: "When you grow up, your heart dies."
Ally Sheedy, the actress / pop novelist? Great philosopher? Is the author serious?
I've found the exact opposite to be true: When you start growing up, you begin to know your heart.
A rigorous education and a lifetime of work may get you to full knowledge.
Well I find entitlement is all over the place. I am only 26 and I own a house. I work, I have little debt.
My workplace is unfortunately unionized and the old timers here are the laziest bunch of SOBs I have ever met. But if the cuts happen then they cut me. I do twice the work of a good half of this workplace, because I actually put some effort into it.
It really depends on if you can get away with the entitlement mentality or not. I have thought back and forth a few times to go back to college. Don't want my Masters or anything. Just want to go back to college. Would let me run away from life for a few more years.
"Would let me run away from life for a few more years."
-----
Frankly, that's ALL a master's degree is (running away from life).
That's mostly what a Ph.D. involves, unless you are really dedicated. Albert Einstein did it while he was working full time as a patent examiner.
Professional degrees (JD, MD etc.) are there for a purpose.
I talked to a girl with rich parents about staying in school (while I was in school), and her response was, "My dad is going to pay for school and my lifestyle for a Ph.D., it beats working".
Yup. Except I didn't have rich parents, so I had to do something useful in school.
As someone who has actually taught incoming freshmen in college, I can tell you exactly what the real problem is. All their lives parents and teachers patted them on the head and said, "Good boy, good girl."
Then when someone comes along who actually grades their papers, they're stunned. Because they come to find out they're not as smart as they thought or were told they are.
It's a failure of parenting more than anything else. Not that the public school system doesn't have a lot to do with that.
I think one part of this is the fact that you can no longer "work your way through college." Tuition is so high that the student becomes infantilized. They have to borrow or have parents pay, which is much the same thing. I went to college in 1956 to a private university. I had a scholarship but lost it and had to pay my own tuition. I could actually do that. I had almost no help from parents. I was going to USC (Southern Cal) which is private and the annual tuition was $500. I could save that much working through the summer and could earn enough in campus jobs to eat and pay rent (about $100/ month for a two bedroom apt.)
Even the state Us, like UCLA where my daughter is a grad student, is charging $6500/quarter to resident students.
Doing that now is fantasy.
I had a scholarship to medical school ($600/semester) and could earn enough with an evening job to support a wife. We ate for $10 / week in 1962.
@WoooHooo,
No nerve. Just that you didn't even understand what Darth Aggie wrote. And still don't.
Maybe some of this is fear of adult responsibilities and especially the state of the economy. And maybe some of it is the shock of people raised on self-esteem who find themselves actually being evaluated, as GawainsGhost suggested. But I suspect much of it is because there are large numbers of students who don't know WHY they are in college, except that somebody told them that they HAD to be there or be failures in life, and meanwhile the college lacks the vision and self-confidence to create a sense of meaning in what they are learning.
Kind of like draftees, in peacetime, in a very incompetently-run army.
@Berki
Oh I understood and..I understand all very well...yes,yes I still do Berki.
Hold on a minute, Helen. I've had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, but I want to weigh in here in defense of the students.
Rent really does suck. You know why? Because, once upon a time, people were told that they should find an apartment that had a rent that did not exceed 1 week's take home pay. Those days are long gone. I live a little over an hour north of NYC. A 1-bedroom is $800 a month. A studio is around $700. That's more than a lot of these kids will take home in a week with their McJobs.
We live in socially arid suburbs where you can't go anywhere without a car, and have to make plans to see anyone -- and everyone is always busy -- or, we live in cities that aren't safe to walk around in. That's a far cry from the social atmosphere of college; and it's a far cry from the relatively crime-free cities of years ago, or the charming small town life that most Americans used to enjoy. Are they crazy for noticing this?
Let me come back to the being "forced to read" after I've discussed the getting and spending, and the cult-of-the-child culture in this country.
Have you stepped back and looked at some of the "adults" that are running around the U.S. nowadays? Their whole lives are work and playing chauffeur for their little darlings' ballet lessons and ball teams. This is all some of them are able to talk about.
I worked in a high school for a short time. In the teachers' lounge, the men were only able to talk about sports, and the women, about menopause, on the one end of the spectrum, and poopy diapers on the other. These were presumably educated people. And yet, it was rare that the conversation ever turned to books or something substantial.
I'm sorry, but what's called "adult life" is not all it's cracked up to be! What have we wrought?
Maybe the kids have caught on.
Solution: Just get a good-earning husband. Then drop your hours in your own silly job (that never earned much anyway) and enjoy life!
Other people who have to work are losers.
It is getting to look more an more like being a self-sufficient makes you a sucker.
Being a responsible adult means you loose a third of your income to taxes, and another third to 'responsible' behavior (401ks, IRAs, insurances of all sorts, savings, etc). So you basically run on one third or less of what you make.
Then you look around and notice the folks who are working far less, at far more entertaining things, under the table, and not taking those 'responsible' behaviors. They are definitely having a lot more fun, and their lifestyle's not all that different than yours.
I don't mind being a responsible adult, but I do mind there being no perceivable net reward for it... that chafes over time.
The answer is stay single, get that education, find or create work where you get the highest amount of compensation for what you do. Get what you're worth by being worth what you get. Work your tail off while young and have the energy and enthusiasm. Save and invest. Then screw off, doing what you really want to do, after everything is paid off. That's the real American dream - for the male, anyway. I'd add get laid as much as possible, but that is so not PC any more.
LOL! Given that the VAST majority of 'freshmen' are now women who the hell CARES if they are unhappy? I bet if you broke it down by gender the boys would be JUST FINE. Men know they are going to work all their lived. Women, because they ARE as dumb as rocks, don't seem to know this when they are in college and MANY don't figure it out until their WEC moment.
ALL men going to college or even having an apprenticeship know that this is the basis of their training that will provide them an income for the remainder of their life. And most look forward to the time they can get a 'real job' and make a bit more money. Most look forward to being in the 'real job' and out of the totally fake world of 'college'.
Although, it has to be said, the PTB are doing such a good job at turning men into women I am seeing not a small number of men talk pretty much exactly like women in the early 20s.
Geez....the class of 2012 is whining about a flat job market? None of these precious little petals can even IMAGINE what it was like in 1982 when I started work. With 15% unemployement and 20% inflation in Australia I was earning $A20 LESS after two years due to the vagaries of the recession and traineeships. I was so poor I could not even afford beer. I used to drink this really bad port for $A1.69 per 750ml bottle when beer was 80 cents a 280ml glass. The port was cheaper than the BEER. THAT tells you how bad that port was. Great engine de-greaser. I could only afford beer at the 'half price night' at my local club for ages!
I tried to get a new job but was told there were 500 APPLICANTS for just 2 positions. They told me that in IT, yes, IT, in 1984, that there were NO JOBS TO BE HAD. So I stayed where I was to try and finish my degree. And I had the BEST MARK in my region leaving high school and won one of only TEN scholarships at the Australian National University, one per faculty. I won the one for physics!!!
When the BEST student turned out from a region who also won a national scholarship can be reduced to drinking port that is $1.69 per bottle because he can't afford BEER....what have these princesses got to complain about? STFU and get to work.
I don't know, peternolan9, I graduated maybe a year later than you, and the upswing started heavily in engineering under Ronald Reagan (if you remember that - huge push for defense).
I got a plum job right away, and it seemed like a lot of defense contractors and computer people were hiring around 1984-85-86.
I guess your mileage will vary.
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I'm not sure most college freshman -- especially women -- are thinking about what they want to do when they grow up specifically. I.E. are they really worried at the age of 18 about whether they will find a job in 4 (or more) years?
That being said, are these kids really that shallow?
RE the cost of college. Our kids are now all out of college / grad school whatever.
But when they went we encouraged them to borrow as *little* money as they could for their bachelors degree. If they did graduate work or something else, they wouldn't be trapped.
The bachelors loan horror stories I hear about perplex me.
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@JAL: Yes, I think they are. Worried, that is.
When I started college nine years ago, all the myths were firmly in place, so I certainly wasn't miserable. (I won't use the exaggeration "the best years of my life;" I was a commuter after all.) I assumed my degree of middling practical value would at least open some low level doors and I could work my way up.
Now, I'm a laborer. As in, construction. It's pretty good money. But it's obviously not what college freshmen dream about. And now that the bubbles have burst (and are still bursting), kids entering college today know it's what they have to look forward to.
The loans issue also contributes to that dread. Freshmen know that not only is the job market bleak, but they'll be in debt. And aside from family law, managing your student loans is the only facet of American life where you don't get a second chance if you make a financial mistake.
Mario, who is forcing them to live in New York? Life like in the "old days" still exists in a lot of places around the country. But those places don't have trendy night clubs and pseudo-celebrities hanging around, so the young recently graduated crowd doesn't want to move to those places. They're "boring."
Yes, college is a very rare time when you can do more socializing than ever before, or ever again in your life. That doesn't mean the rest of life sucks, just that college is uncharacteristic in that it does not reflect reality. Having to make plans to see friends has nothing to do with where they live and everything to do with the fact that those friends now have responsibilities and commitments, to work, to significant others, and soon enough to children. That's why they can't just knock on the next door over and start a party at midnight, not because they no longer live in a dorm or whatever.
Cry me a river. My best friend managed to turn poor grades and bad luck into engraved letters on a granite wall in Washington, DC. I was younger. My luck was better.
We may, it toto, be the worst generation, but these are not the worst of times. Not yet, anyway. Our leaders are working on it.
The real point is it's not just college students who are unhappy. It's anyone who has the sense to notice our standard of living will continue to decline with rampant corruption at the top; crony capitalism, highest nepotism in congress ever, greed. Oh and old men from Class of 1932 watching FOX who can't think for themselves anymore or never did and never will.
Only comments worth reading here are Zach, Fred, Cham, Michael, Zach, TMink, br549 (Unfortunately there is no American Dream left), sorry if I missed :)anyone, Quadrupole, Mario, me, did I mention Zach, DaDv, and Stosh2, Zach.
All I can offer to the poor babies is, "It's called 'life," deal with it."
At age 64 all I can say for these poor schmucks is: "Awwwww, poor baby!"
Wow. If you folks are so convinced life is so horrible, why are you still around?
I think that article tells us a lot more about CNBC and New York Times scribblers and the prejudices of their audience than about college freshmen.
If today's college entering classes didn't have more angst than any in the past 25 years, that would indeed be surprising -not for the reasons the journalistas gave but for much more down-to-earth causes.
Do the arithmetic: 2011-25 = 1986, not 1982 or 1962 or 1932. And how has the U.S. economy been since the late Reagan years? Pretty darn good and on the upswing for most of that time. In the last two years though it's been a bummer. And though the Establishment Media that has been telling us there's light at the end of the tunnel, a lot of folks are realizing that that's the headlight of an oncoming train.
It sure feels like 1978-79 all over again. The U.S. economy is stagnating, the dollar is falling, foreign crises occur every other week, America's president vacillates while talking down to the people who make this country work, and employment prospects are poor - most especially for the labor market's newest entrants.
Michael K noted the price of college has recently zoomed sharply upward. Those fabled summer jobs are tough to come by these days, the parents may have seen their own pay cut, and if anyone was looking forward to covering the rise in college expenses with home equity, well, that went goodbye in 2007, '8, '9, and '10.
Sure, let's laugh at the fools indulging themselves in grievance studies and basketweaving majors. Let's also giggle at those girls (MB, are you there?) who expect college to serve as their finishing school in preparation for an M.R.S. degree that marries them to a big income. And let's all say phooey to the sham Women Hardest Hit stories. Still, after all that, fred's correct to note the bleakness these days and I agree that the "real issue" cannot "be so readily dismissed by snarky comments" as some here seem to believe.
In 1982 America had Ronald Reagan and "morning in America." Today it's Obama and an Establishment moaning oh how bad Americans are.
As a soon to be graduate, I'm already filling out my resumes and sending them off to prospective companies. Padding them with a few odd-job employment (stagehand, 7-11 Clerk) and an internship.
I don't need to be told what to read, what to like. I pay my own tuition, and I've decided dorms are not worth it, so I commute for about 2 hours to school. I do my homework and I have fun with my select group of friends.
But the one thing we all agreed on, is that life is gonna hit us like a runaway diesel locomotive and we might as well prepare to jump to the side so we don't get splattered and survive to see the end of this train pass us by.
Not many kids in America can say that.
I graduated in the early 80s. We weren't that worse off than now & we weren't that better off than now but then we were at that time expected by every adult around us to get a job and stick to it in accordance with the prevailing attitudes and customs of our middle-class day. And most of us wanted to - to prove we could make our own way.
When my beloved and I married we were paying 27.6% interest rate on our first house mortgage in New Zealand and we had to live off 2 weeks' of my earnings each month - the other 2 weeks and all 4 weeks of my wife's nursing salary went to the mortgage.
We were not poor, no way, we always ate, were dressed, and had fun. We were not unusual, and we didn't expect to afford lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless on a Micawber income.
In this effort we were much helped when we were young and foolish by two then-prevailing truths (a) no-one offering to lend us money for disposable consumer goods; and (b) the real fear of losing our house if we missed payments, no bailout or safety net in those days.
I expect to work till I cannot, it's my pride as a husband and father. Hell on earth for me would be to not to be able to provide while I can still work - I really feel for people who want jobs and cannot get them.
I cleaned toilets as a student, even once shoveled s**t for 2 days for $ (pump in local sewerage pond broke down and it was cheaper for the utility to hire students with shovels and buckets than to pump it out... wiping petrol all over my student-hippie-beard kept the stench at bay. Heh...)
The state supported Engineering school told us that they had to take us in if our grades were sufficient, however, they did not have to keep us there. In fact, the first thing we were told in freshman orientation was that only one out of three would ‘make it’. Then they piled on 23 semester credits plus Saturday labs to make the point.
I thought this is hell, but stuck it out. It was only after going to work in the ‘real world’ that I realized college is just insulation from the hard fact that after graduation ‘every day is a pop quiz and you are graded by reality’.
If you are taking soft, cushy classes, the transition will be even more difficult. But hang in there on this merry-go-round…you might get the brass ring.
Bubbles are indeed bursting all around this freshman class. They cannot pretend that a college degree will earn them a living. Yet they understand without a degree, their chances will be far worse. I am sure many of them feel these times right now at college will likely be the best years of their lives. It will only get worse after they graduate.
I reply back, they re learning an important lesson when they are young. For all the sneering at baby boomers who don't get it, and never dealt with this type of widespread unemployment, I say bull. I am a baby boomer. I remember the late seventies and early eighties where whole industries were shutting down and moving offshore. Does the phrase "rust belt" mean anything? Here is a hint to all of you looking at this as a disaster. It ALREADY HAPPENED to a lot of industrial blue collar jobs before this freshman class was even born. Back then, those affected weren't single in there twenties. They were being wholesale laid off in their forties and fifties. You work in a steel mill all your life and all those jobs just moved offshore. So it is not that we don't understand or care. It is that we believe someone single in their twenties faces a far better hope of recovery down the road then somebody in their forties and fifties. I don't blame today's freshman class for feeling like they were given a bad break. They were. But they are not unique. And the only way college years will be the best years of their life is if they allow that to happen. At some point they will begin to get focused on making things better. Hopefully sooner rather than later. They will need to take the mindset of their grandparents. The mindset that says, I want things to better for the next generation. I think by and large boomers did fail to do that. If you want to blame us, go ahead. But after blaming us, the question must be asked. What will you do to make things better than you have it for the next generation?
"we live in cities that aren't safe to walk around in. That's a far cry from the social atmosphere of college; and it's a far cry from the relatively crime-free cities of years ago"
Reality check here. The crime rate has been falling steadily since the '60's. Crime is better than it has been for 50 years.
Garbage in garbage out. The problem is too many people who don't qualify for college are being accepted. In order to make this work, education has been dumbed down to accomodate everybody. Some people aren't smart enough for college, but unfortunately that isn't PC in todays university. Everyone allowed in equals more revenue for the schools, and they don't care if their product has to be devalued because of it. I have a degree in English, back when that meant something, and I'm on the board of directors of a hospital. Todays English major probably doesn't have the critical thinking skills to become the janitor.
Frankly, that's ALL a master's degree is (running away from life).
Not in some fields. The college where I teach, wanting to burnish its image for an upcoming accreditation, did a complete purge of anyone on faculty without a master's degree. Even the guy teaching music business who owned his own record label and had 20+ years of practical experience was let go. (I should mention that this purge took place in mid-February, four weeks into a semester.)
I should also mention that, in my own case, my bachelor's degree helped me discover what I didn't want to do in my field, whereas my master's helped me refine the skills I needed to do what I really wanted to do.
Interesting but it doesn't match mys son's freshman experience. He's taking Biochem, hangs with mostly science and engineering students and is having a great time - intellectually and socially. They all seem to be postive about the future but then again none of them are liberal arts majors.
Never understood why you needed college to get educated that way. Most scientists and engineers I know are well read and know quite a bit about arts, music, etc but I don't know any liberal art majors who really understand science.
Raised a teacher, a lawyer and an RN (to be).
Told 'em after college, there was no moving back home, they were adults and expected to make their way.
When the oldest discovered a BA degree did not lead to a six figure salary, but an office job with no future, they asked to move back. Saying no was the hardest thing we ever had to do but we did and she made it.
The "miserable freshman" described does not match any of my kids' experiences, nor that of my nieces or nephews...
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@ Whoohoo
I do appreciate that you liked my comments so much.
I thankfully escaped college in 06 with only about 20k in student loan debt. I bought a HUD foreclosure house last year and have some sweat equity out of it. Considering whether to refi and pay off the student debt. I can go bankrupt on the house, but not on the student loan.
I went to a lower end college (but still a good one) and worked through my years there to pay the bills. Still had to borrow. Can't believe some of these colleges where you come out 50-60k in debt.
I have a friend from college who was majoring in music. got his masters and is close to 75-80k in debt. working in a job where he repairs instruments. He has been trying to get into an orchestra with little luck. No clue how he is going to pay all that off.
@Zack
I feel you on the entitlement bit. Sounds like your doing really fine and 26 at that! With/without tuition reimbursement go for the masters...
force out some retirees heehee. Good luck!
I agree with Micha Elyi's comment, and I'd add that it's probably easier to feel positive about your future if:
(1). You entered college with good study habits and a solid high school education; and
(2). You leave college with little or no debt.
To the extent most college freshmen today are lacking in the former and have slight chance of the latter, then I agree they should be concerned.
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