College Students’ Economic Worries Increase; Still Optimistic about Future

Though college students are optimistic about the future overall, they are more worried than ever about their career prospects following graduation.  This finding comes from a new report,  the “2010 Survey of America’s College Students,” conducted by Hart Research Associates for the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. The survey includes data from more than one thousand online and telephone interviews with college students representing four-year higher education institutions nationwide.

FINDINGS

The State of the Nation

• More than half of college students (53 percent) say the country is headed in the right direction, compared with just 33 percent of adults who feel the nation is on the right track.
• Students at public institutions have a more optimistic outlook about the nation’s direction (59 percent say we’re on the right track, 37 percent wrong track) than their private-school peers (45 percent right track, 47 percent wrong track).
• The national issues considered most important by college students include improving the job situation/economy (61 percent cite it as most important); dealing with the cost of a college education (40 percent); and improving the health care system (31 percent).

Economy and Employment

• Only about two-thirds of students (64 percent) are confident they will find an acceptable job after graduation—the lowest percentage recorded in the survey’s ten-year history. Seniors are less confident they will find an acceptable job (45 percent feel  only somewhat or not confident)
• Two in five college students say they have been personally affected a great deal (10 percent) or quite a bit (30 percent) by the economic downturn.
• Seventy-five percent of college students say they will take the best job they can find after graduation, compared with only 25 percent who say they are willing to wait for the “right” job.

Assessment of Education

• Four in five college students are very (40 percent) or fairly (43 percent) satisfied that the college education they have received so far has prepared them for life after graduation.
• Twenty percent of students responded to an open-ended question about how to improve college education with suggestions about affordability—lowering tuition, cutting book costs, etc. Thirteen percent of students suggested improving teacher quality, and 11 percent wanted more relevance to the real world in classes.
• Despite cost concerns, nearly ninety percent of students say their college education so far has been a very good (35 percent) or fairly good (54) value for the cost.

The entire survey may be downloaded as a PDF.

DID YOU KNOW?

• More than two-thirds (68 percent) of college students worry very often (37 percent) or fairly often (31 percent) about finding a job with good pay.
• Forty-two percent of students say they are very or fairly interested in working for the government after college—the highest percentage since the survey began in 2001.
• Despite economic challenges, 46 percent of college students remain optimistic that they will eventually meet or exceed their parents’ financial level.