editorially /peaking What Drives Students? For over 20 years, the American Council on Education has conducted general surveys of students entering two- and four-year postsecondary institutions. These surveys are an attempt to provide a profile of the aspirations, hopes, and attitudes of the enterine class. as well as their ooinions on topical items. The most recent survey has some interesting ramifications for the basic sciences. technoloev. and the educational system. The current trend among entering students is a continued interest in what can only he described as materialism. More than three-quarters of the 200,000 plus students surveyed feel that being financially well-off is an "essential" or "very important" goal for them. At the same time, the lowest orooortion of freshmen in 20 vears-39%-out a ereat em;hasis on developing a mekingful philosiphy i f life; in 1966, 83% of the students surveyed thought this was an essential or very important goal in their education. This Dercentase has d10oDed steadilv since 1966 to the current iow value. I t appears that students tend to see their life as heing dependent on affluence; they are not inclined to he reflective. Not surprisingly, business continues to he the preferred career. All of the basic sciences have been affected by the general decline in proposed majors since the survey began in 1966. Interest in biological sciences decreased from 21.3 t o 14.4% in this period; mathematics, from 4.5 to 0.670, and the ohvsical sciences from 3.3 to 1.6%. Relativelv recentlv in the iifi of the survey, a declining freshmen interest in technology careers has been detected. Freshman interest in engineering fell from 12.0 to 8.5% between 1982 and 1987, and a more precipitous drop occurred, from 8.8 to 2.790, in the preference for careers in computing. These continuing declines of student interest in science and technology foreshadow even more difficult problems in
supply and demand in the corresponding sectors of the lahor market. In one sense, the problems that the decline in interest in hasic sciences oortend have alreadv been seen in the enaineering professions where native-horn BS students do not ~erceivea financial advantage - in ~. u r s u i -n aan advanced depee. Apparently, advanced degrees are not particularly desirable attributes for most enaineerina recruiter8 so BS engineering students have no pa&icular hcentives to obtain &I advanced degree. However, they do, in general, receive relatively lucrative job offers. All this has produced many engineering faculties with a decreasing fraction of native-born teachers, which, in itself, is not particularly distressing. I t is fortunate that salaries for BS engineers entering the work force are reasonably competitive. The precipitous drop in freshman interest in engineering may be sufficient to overcome the salary advantage and produce personnel problems similar to those currently heing predicted in the basic sciences. Parallel to these apparent shifts in values, there has been a dramaticdecline instudent interest in altruisticcareers such as teaching and social work. Some commentators point out that the students now on campus are the children of the dramatic economic uoheaval of the oast decade. Thev have come of age during t i e high inflation of the 1970's A d the severe recession of the early 1980's and the restructuring of the American economy that is currently underway. From this perspective, i t is not surprising that today's students are concerned about an economic future that they perceive to be unstable. For those students, the traditional goals that require real wealth-home ownership, a reasonable level of comfort and leisure, college educations for their childrenappear to be increasingly out of reach. If all this is true, what are we to do about repopulating the basic sciences-"buy" students a t ever increasing stipends?
JJL
Volume 66 Number 1 January 1969
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