Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Pre-College Parental Chat May Reduce Freshman Drinking

 Parents who want to help their teens better navigate the world of college drinking might consider a pre-college chat on the topic. New research suggests it will help douse their desire to imbibe when they hit campus.

"The research shows parents do influence a teen's decisions about drinking, even at this age," said study co-author Michael Cleveland, a research assistant professor at the Prevention Research Center at Pennsylvania State University.

The scientists recruited 1,900 soon-to-be college freshmen to participate in questionnaires about their drinking habits. Their parents were mailed a 22-page handbook that included general information about college student drinking, how to communicate effectively, advice on how to help teens be assertive and resist peer pressure, and detailed information on the physical effects of alcoholic beverages on the body. Parents were asked to read the handbook and then talk with their teen about the contents at one of three randomly assigned times, either during the summer before college, during the fall semester of the first year of college, or during the summer before college and again during the fall semester freshman year.

The findings, reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, show that teens who talked with their parents about anti-drinking strategies before they began their first year of college were more likely to fall into a non-drinking or light-drinking category, or to transition out of a heavy-drinking group if they were already heavy drinkers. Talking with their child in the fall of freshman year was less effective or had no additional impact on drinking behaviors, Cleveland said.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/03/29/pre-college-parental-chat-may-reduce-freshman-drinking

Unprepared for College [INFOGRAPHIC]

Source: CollegeAtHome.com

College Students with Helicopter Parents More Likely to be Depressed

Helicopter parents who still run their university-aged children's schedules, laundry and vacations could be doing more harm than good with a new study showing these students were more likely to be depressed and dissatisfied with life.

Researcher Holly Schiffrin from the University of Mary Washington in Virginia found so-called helicopter parenting negatively affected college students by undermining their need to feel autonomous and competent.

Her study found students with over-controlling parents were more likely to be depressed and less satisfied with their lives while the number of hyper-parents was increasing with economic fears fuelling concerns over youngsters' chances of success.

"You expect parents with younger kids to be very involved but the problem is that these children are old enough to look after themselves and their parents are not backing off," Schiffrin, an associate professor of psychology, told Reuters.

"To find parents so closely involved with their college lives, contacting their tutors and running their schedules, is something new and on the increase. It does not allow independence and the chance to learn from mistakes."

Schiffrin said the increase in technology had changed the involvement of parents in their children's college lives as the once-a-week phone call home was replaced with regular texting, emails and messaging.

The study was published in Springer's Journal of Child and Family Studies.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/13/us-parents-students-idUSBRE91C18520130213

Study: College Students' Grades Decline the More Parents Provide Financial Assistance

A new study finds that the more money that parents provide for higher education, the lower the grades their children earn. The findings -- particularly grouped with other work by the researcher who made them -- suggest that the students least likely to excel are those who receive essentially blank checks for college expenses.

The study -- "More Is More or More Is Less?" -- conducted by Laura Hamilton, an assistant professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at the University of California at Merced, was published in the American Sociological Review.

Hamilton compared parental contributions and grades. Significantly, she also controlled for factors such as parental socioeconomic status. She argues in the paper that high wealth levels are associated with higher parental financial contributions, but also with other factors that contribute to academic performance (such as better high school educations, high aspirations for higher education, and so forth).

Hamilton found -- across all types of four-year institutions -- the greater parental contributions were, the lower the student grades were.

This finding backs the idea that parental financial support can act as a "moral hazard" in that students make decisions about how seriously to take their studies without having personally made the investment of cash in their educations.

Source: Inside Higher Ed
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/14/study-finds-increased-parental-support-college-results-lower-grades

Study: U.S. College Freshmen Think They're More Special Than Ever

Books aside, if you asked a college freshman today who the Greatest Generation is, they might respond by pointing in a mirror.

Young people's unprecedented level of self-infatuation was revealed in a new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has been asking students to rate themselves compared to their peers since 1966.

Psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues compiled the data and found that over the last four decades there's been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being 'above average' in the areas of academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability, and self-confidence.

Researchers found a disconnect between the student's opinions of themselves and actual ability.

While students are much more likely to call themselves gifted in writing abilities, objective test scores actually show that their writing abilities are far less than those of their 1960s counterparts.

Also on the decline is the amount of time spent studying, with little more than a third of students saying they study for six or more hours a week compared to almost half of all students claiming the same in the late 1980s.

Though they may work less, the number that said they had a drive to succeed rose sharply.

Still, these young egoists can grow up to become depressed adults. A 2006 study found that students suffer from 'ambition inflation' as their increased ambitions accompany increasingly unrealistic expectations. "Since the 1960s and 1970s, when those expectations started to grow, there's been an increase in anxiety and depression," Twenge said. "There's going to be a lot more people who don't reach their goals."

"Our culture used to encourage modesty and humility and not bragging about yourself," Twenge told BBC News. "It was considered a bad thing to be seen as conceited or full of yourself." Twenge said narcissim is a trait that is often negative and destructive, and blames its boom on several trends - including parenting styles, celebrity culture, social media, and easy credit - for allowing people to seem more successful than they really are.

"What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the key to success," Twenge said. "Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue." "You need to believe that you can go out and do something but that's not the same as thinking that you're great," Twenge said.

Source: Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257715/Study-shows-college-students-think-theyre-special--read-write-barely-study.html

Educators Moving Further to the Left

Academics, on average, lean to the left. A recently released survey suggests that they are moving even more in that direction.

Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as "far left" or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined. The data come from the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys faculty members nationwide every three years on a range of attitudes.

Here are the data for the new survey and the prior survey (from 2007-8):

	2010-11	2007-8
Far left	12.4%	8.8%
Liberal	50.3%	47.0%
Middle of the road	25.4%	28.4%
Conservative	11.5%	15.2%
Far right	0.4%	0.7%

In looking at the new data, there is notable variation by sector. Private research universities are the most left-leaning, with 16.2 percent of faculty members identifying as far left, and 0.1 percent as far right. (If one combines far left and liberal, however, private, four-year, non-religious colleges top private universities, 68.6 percent to 67.7 percent.) The largest conservative contingent can be found at religious, non-Roman Catholic four-year colleges, where 23.0 percent identify as conservative and another 0.6 percent say that they are far right.

Source: Inside Higher Ed
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left

Study: Church-going Teens Go Further with School

Sociologists from Brigham Young University and Rice University found religiously-affiliated youth are 40 percent more likely to graduate high school than their unaffiliated peers and 70 percent more likely to enroll in college.

The researchers note that teens' fellow church-goers are an important factor, serving as mentors who help teens set their sights high.

"Youth have a unique chance to form relationships with peers and mentors outside of their classroom at school or their neighborhood at home," said Lance Erickson, the lead study author and a sociologist at BYU. "Mentors especially care for, counsel with and encourage youth throughout their growing years in a way that teachers and parents might not be able to."

Erickson and co-author James Phillips of Rice University studied data from more than 8,379 teens across the country.

Across all faiths, Erickson's new study found that measures of religious participation and spirituality are positively associated with higher educational attainment. Church attendance, for example, was especially predictive of high school graduation, while prayer was more influential for college enrollment.

Interestingly, Erickson and Phillips found mentors with a religious background have essentially the same effect as educators who mentor students.

"Having a non-parent, adult figure who provides positive behavioral encouragement and that a teenager feels comfortable approaching is huge," Phillips said. "Here we see just how far-reaching those religious mentorships are, even to the point of influencing college enrollment as effectively as mentors who are strictly from educational settings, such as teachers or coaches."

Source: Phys.org
http://phys.org/news/2012-11-church-going-teens-school.html
 

Student Loan Debt Hits Record High

The average college student who graduated in 2011 had $26,600 in student loans, according to a new report, which estimates two-thirds of last year’s college graduates had student loan debt.

The average debt is the largest since the Institute for College Access and Success began compiling the figures in 2005, and it comes amid soaring college costs, record loan defaults, and a persistently difficult job market for college graduates.

While unemployment among college graduates is only slightly higher than the overall rate, the study found a stunning 37.8 percent of recent graduates are working in jobs that do not require a college degree. The study said that means wages are depressed, making the situation for graduates even more difficult.

The report cites recent U.S. Department of Education Data which show the federal student loan default rate at its highest level in 14 years. The New York Federal Reserve recently reported more than five million student loan borrowers have at least one loan past due.

Source: NBC News
http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/18/14535163-student-loan-debt-hits-record-high-study-shows

Studies Find More Students Cheating

Recent studies of student behavior and attitudes show that a majority of students violate standards of academic integrity to some degree, and that high achievers are just as likely to do it as others.

Experts say the reasons are relatively simple: Cheating has become easier and more widely tolerated, and both schools and parents have failed to give students strong, repetitive messages about what is allowed and what is prohibited.

“I don’t think there’s any question that students have become more competitive, under more pressure, and, as a result, tend to excuse more from themselves and other students, and that’s abetted by the adults around them,” said Donald L. McCabe, a professor at the Rutgers University Business School, and a leading researcher on cheating. “There have always been struggling students who cheat to survive,” he said. “But more and more, there are students at the top who cheat to thrive.”

Internet access has made cheating easier, enabling students to connect instantly with answers, friends to consult and works to plagiarize. And generations of research has shown that a major factor in unethical behavior is simply how easy or hard it is.

A recent study by Jeffrey A. Roberts and David M. Wasieleski at Duquesne University found that the more online tools college students were allowed to use to complete an assignment, the more likely they were to copy the work of others.

The Internet has changed attitudes, as a world of instant downloading, searching, cutting and pasting has loosened some ideas of ownership and authorship. An increased emphasis on having students work in teams may also have played a role.

“Students are surprisingly unclear about what constitutes plagiarism or cheating,” said Mr. Wasieleski, an associate professor of management.

Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said that over the 20 years he has studied professional and academic integrity, “the ethical muscles have atrophied,” in part because of a culture that exalts success, however it is attained.

Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/education/studies-show-more-students-cheat-even-high-achievers.html

What Do College Students Look Like in 2012? [INFOGRAPHIC]

The infographic below looks at the vast diversity of today's college students and suggests that it's impossible to put them in a neat little demographic bucket.

Source: SheerID
http://www.sheerid.com/college-students-of-2012-infographic/