UCLA Higher Education Research Institute study finds incoming first-years have more financial concerns
By Shweta Saraswat
Jan. 26, 2010 9:43 p.m.
Incoming university students are going to greater lengths to afford college in hopes that their investment will pay off after graduation, according to a nation-wide survey.
The percentage of entering first-years expressing some concern about how they are going to pay for college has reached its highest point since 1971, according to the annual nation-wide American Freshman Survey released by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute on Thursday. The survey reported that 66.7 percent of first-years expressed some or major concerns about affording college.
“The major story we’re looking at is the impact of the economy on students,” said Linda DeAngelo, the assistant director for research at the Cooperative Institutional Research Program who worked on the survey. “We see that students are more concerned about being able to finance their education. They are taking out more loans in greater amounts … and are graduating with higher debt burdens than if they had come to college five or six years ago.”
The number one reason students gave for attending college was to get a better job, closely followed by a desire to learn things that interest them, according to DeAngelo.
“People with college degrees earn much higher incomes than those that don’t. … That is (known) in the general environment,” said DeAngelo. This may explain why students are willing to carry heavier costs and go deeper into debt to get a degree.
Degrees themselves, however, may be changing as well because of the recession. Academic departments have been asked to reduce degree requirements to the core, which may allow some students to graduate early, according to Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Judy Smith.
“The departments are not required to reduce course requirements, but they are encouraged to examine their curriculum and justify their courses,” Smith said. “It helps because students might have fewer requisites and have the opportunity to take other courses that they would like to explore.”
Joshua Osburn, a first-year biology student, called the idea of cutting degree requirements detrimental to the value of the degree.
“Each class … offers very important information that simply cannot be replaced,” Osburn said. “I’m at college to learn, aren’t I?”
Smith disagreed that reducing requirements would lower the value of a UCLA degree.
“Who is to say that a major has to have 75 units? It’s not how many courses you take, but the quality of what you do with those experiences,” Smith said.
Though they hadn’t even officially started their college careers yet, first-years in the survey said they were already concerned about their post-graduation careers. The survey shows that students are carefully weighing risks, choosing paths they feel will most likely lead to financial security after graduation. The number of students who said they would pursue majors in business, for example, dropped to a 35-year low of 14.4 percent.
Post-graduation confidence comes with careful planning and a variety of experience, said Smith, not more time spent in college.
“Our experience is that when economic times are hard, students tend to persist longer than cut out quicker,” Smith said. “They think two majors and two minors will prepare them for anything, but employers are looking for people who have achieved something beyond just taking courses.”
Being able to spend more time at a university is not as simple nor as affordable as it used to be, however, with the average debt of a UCLA graduate sitting between $16,000 and $17,000 according to Director of Financial Aid Ron Johnson.
In response to increased financial needs brought on by the recession and recent tuition fee hikes, the UCLA Financial Aid Office expects its budget to increase from about $3,000 to just more than $30,00 for resident students next year, according to Johnson.
Johnson emphasized the UC-wide Blue and Gold Opportunity as a way for students to cover costs. This program covers system-wide fees for California residents whose families earn less than $60,000. Next year that minimum income will move to $70,000.
“This is one of the primary ways the university is trying to address the families who are beginning to feel a great degree of hardship because of the recession,” Johnson said.
Though students can still turn to the university for aid, Johnson encourages them to save money in other ways as well.
“Students need to look at every resource that is available, especially scholarship Web sites,” Johnson said. “What they can also do is during the summer … try to get part-time employment and start putting as much money away as they can.”
