When choosing a college major, teens are more likely to be influenced by their childhood dreams than the potential to earn high salaries upon graduation. Their parents, however, see things a bit differently.
This news comes via a new survey by Discover Student Loans, and compares the views of college-bound teens to those of their parents. When asked “what should play a leading role when making a decision?”, 32 percent of students answered “Dreamed of a particular career since childhood,” while 41 percent of parents chose “Job opportunities/availability upon graduation.” But both groups were less concerned with earning potential, with 25 percent of students saying this was important, compared to 15 percent of parents.
The latter finding is consistent with other recent data indicating a mindset shift in the career goals of Millennials — those born after 1980 — from the aims of previous generations. For example, a Boston College report finds that Millennials are more focused on finding meaningful work than they are on money. The Discover survey shows that this mindset begins well before a job search, when teens are looking at which college major to pursue.
Looking at how attitudes toward college major choice have changed, a 1988 Cornell University study looked at how college attendees throughout the 1970s — many of which are parents to college-bound teens today — chose majors based on financial considerations. The study found that individuals were more likely to look at the long-term earning possibilities of a position rather than the starting salary. Again, it now seems that both parents and teens place less importance on the financial implications of a major than other factors when making a decision.
And though the Discover survey results show differences in the opinions of parents and teens, the lowered importance on salary cited by both groups may come from the fact that parental involvement in higher education choices is much higher than it was in the survey of 1970s college-bound teens.
It is clear that while students and parents are not always in agreement on the important factors in decisions about college majors, the thought processes of both have changed drastically since a generation ago. Less importance is placed on earnings potential, though all agree that a college education is an extremely important factor in finding a meaningful job.
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