Head High, Chin Up, Eyes Clear

By Ellie McGrath

A record number of graduates face their new world, bravely

The class of '82 is in a class by itself. It is the largest in history: 945,000 bachelor's degrees, 303,000 master's degrees, 33,300 doctorates and an all-time high of 73,600 first professional degrees. Most of its graduates were born around 1960, at the tail end of the baby boom and the height of national prosperity, and will turn 40 around the year 2000. This class, almost evenly divided between male and female graduates, has great demographic diversity, with many older students and minorities.

A survey by TIME of this year's graduates, as well as by sociologists, educators and demographers, suggests that this class faces a difficult future--and knows it. "It's clear the class of '82 is entering the world during an era of prolonged austerity and retrenchment," says Peter A. Morrison, director of the Rand Corp.'s Population Research Center. "The class of '64 in a sense was the last one to get through a wide pipeline, when things worked well and the economy was in good shape." Says Jonathan Cole, who graduated from Columbia University in 1964 and now teaches sociology there: "We had a feeling then that the universe was expanding. Now these kids seem to feel it's contracting, closing in on them." Walter Brown, head of the job placement office at California State University at Los Angeles, distills the mood of the class of '82 this way: "If a recruiter from Dow Chemical showed up here now and he had jobs, he would be greeted with something resembling Beatlemania."

Superficially, the class of '82 resembles the class of '64: the students are fairly conservative; they dress well; they respect their parents. They have embraced many traditional social conventions, such as fraternities and senior proms. If they lack the optimism of their predecessors, they have substituted a survivalist mentality. The annual American Council on Education-U.C.L.A. survey of college freshmen reported in 1978 that 60% of the class of '82 said that "to make more money" was an important reason to go to college; even more expected to find a job in their preferred field. As a result, colleges are filled with grim professionals.

Today's preferred areas of study are business, engineering, computers and health professions. At Northwestern University, English majors declined by 50% from 1964 to 1982. This year's class at the University of Texas at Austin has 1,993 business majors, compared with only 1,217 for all the liberal arts. Says Kent Johnson, an agricultural economics major at Texas A & M: "You have to look at what kind of return you're going to get for your investment. You can't be a music major. It won't pay the bills." Concludes Gary Margolis, director of counseling at Middlebury College in Vermont: "These students feel they have less luxury to consider many options."

Unlike students in the '60s and '70s, these undergraduates did not take time off to "do their own thing." When they did take time off, it was to earn tuition money or work in internships. Bob Ferran, a June graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and an industrial-engineering major, planned his assault on the work force by interrupting his schooling to work six months with AT&T. Now he has a number of unsolicited job offers. His only regret: not having enough time to study history or political science, two reasons why he chose Berkeley. Says Ferran: "Engineering is something I'm good at and something practical. I'm not particularly fascinated by the field, but you've got to be more pragmatic than in the past."

Fewer students are going on to academic graduate programs. Susan Hauser, associate director of career planning at Yale, notes, "It's so expensive to go to graduate school that fewer people see it as a natural progression in their lives." At Harvard-Radcliffe in the mid-'60s, more than 75% of all summa cum laude graduates decided on immediate graduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Now only a third plan on advanced academic degrees: they know there is very little opportunity to break into the overtenured field of teaching. Elisa Lewis, a recent graduate of Northwestern who majored in communications, is enrolling in a graduate program entirely devoted to advertising. Having had a preliminary taste of frustration as an undergraduate looking for a job, she is determined to make it. "Nothing," she says, "really prepares you for ten rejection letters after your first interviews."

Such a narrow vocational focus understandably has some thoughtful elders worried. Says Garland Richmond, associate dean of Emory University in Atlanta: "I think this need for certification and emphasis on a diploma and transcript has kept them from really enjoying college which is one of the most exciting experiences in life." Comments Roger Lehecka dean of students at Columbia: "These young people feel they must make career decisions immediately or be left out. This element of panic is unhealthy. They're making premature decisions." Northwestern Associate Provost John Margolis wishes for "a bit more willingness to try out unconventional ideas. These students are far less frivolous. They are also less joyous."

The emotions of this year's graduates may match the situation they face. According to Herbert Smith of the Rockefeller Foundation, "They are part of the largest birth cohort in U.S. history, and when they enter the job market they'll have the greatest competition. Employers will be able to be more choosy, yet these young people remain particular about what they want out of life and from a job." Between 1947 and 1969, professional job openings for men increased 4% every year. From 1970 on, the annual rate slowed to .3%. The job situation, according to most estimates, is not likely to improve, either now or later. Concludes Demographer Richard Easterlin, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania: "These graduates will have a relatively slow movement up the job ladder."

The economic prospects facing the class of '82 will profoundly affect home life. Mobility, in more ways than one, will be severely restricted. Says Rand's Morrison: "The class of '82 is going to find it much more difficult to move from being renters to being homeowners." He also predicts that older people may stay in the work force longer, frustrating those farther down. Young workers may be asked to contribute more of their weekly paychecks toward Social Security, thus creating hostilities between the old and the young. Says Morrison: "We've never had in our society cleavage along lines of age."

The advances of women in the work force have changed the way people look at marriage. More than 90% of today's graduates believe in the principle of equal pay for women. But according to Princeton Demographer Charles Westoff, such equity between the sexes may be 100 years down the road. Most educated women today are embarking on careers out of a sense of mission and with the expectation that they will probably work for a major part of their lives. Adds Westoff: "An increasing proportion of the class of '82 will live with prospective spouses for some years without getting married." After marriage, the stress will change but not abate. "There will be a lot of pressure to keep child-bearing down and for wives to work," says Easterlin. "This will create role conflicts."

Notwithstanding these tensions, says Northwestern's Lewis, "my friends are more serious about marriage, because many of them have divorced parents." For the class of '64, only one student in ten came from a one-parent family; today the ratio is one in five. These odds will not improve. Says Westoff: "There will be a general increase in marital hypochondria, the feeling that one's marriage should be re-evaluated like a car. If it's not measuring up, you just trade it in." He predicts that the divorce rate will eventually rise to one out of every two marriages.

The class of '82 seems to have calculated its strategy. "We're not vacuous people," insists Columbia Senior Class President Bob Kemp. "We're not the disco-crazed kids of the '70s or the naive kids of the '50s either. We're sophisticated people who know what we want and are willing to work for it." Says Craig Roberts, a Columbia English major going on to medical school: "I value hard work more than anything else. As a generation, I think we're tougher." For his senior thesis, Craig Forman surveyed his senior-class colleagues at Princeton and concluded, "Students now are really excited about getting what they can for themselves before it's too late, before some nation nukes somebody over some island where there are lots of sheep." He also found that his fellow students professed a basic lack of trust in human beings: nearly half disagreed, in his survey, with the proposition that "most people will go out of their way to help someone else."

Politically, the class of '82 is less liberal than its predecessors--but not necessarily more conservative. According to A.C.E.-U.C.L.A., only 25% of this U.S. graduating class characterized themselves as political liberals, compared with 36% of freshmen entering in 1970. But the number describing themselves as "conservative" has remained fairly stable, at about 16%. Says Alexander Astin, head of the Los Angeles-based Higher Education Research Institute: "Many students don't feel they can call themselves liberal and want to make money. But it's less conservatism than materialism." Says Lillie Dollinger, an economics major at Texas A & M: "In the '80s the issues are money and jobs, and the conservatives are the ones getting students stirred up." At the same time, there has been a distinct cool ing on college campuses toward affirmative action: students tend to view special help for minorities as a threat to their own chances of success.

Yet this is not a wholly vocational class. In fact, it is a reasonably socially aware class. Says Paul Ginsberg, dean of students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison: "They are not callous. They are showing their concern and involvement in often less conspicuous ways." At Wisconsin a tutoring program for disadvantaged students has been besieged by volunteers. Students at Emory University organized a service to send some 400 volunteers into the Atlanta community to help the elderly and handicapped. Among class members there appears to be a rich sense of camaraderie, despite the intense competition. Says Emory's Richmond: "I find students enormously caring and supportive of one another."

More than previous graduating classes, the class of '82 finds such traditional institutions as church and family compelling. As entering freshmen, 85% of them said they had attended church within the past year, compared with 64% in 1966. Three out of ten students described themselves as born-again Christians. Today's graduates are closer to their folks, perhaps in part because of the sacrifices their parents are making to meet high tuition bills. Says Columbia Dean Lehecka: "They value their parents' opinions. Most students used to be embarrassed to say, 'I'm making this decision based on what my parents think.' "

Indeed, these students can use all the help they can get. They know that there has never been such a flood of college-educated talent hitting the work force in such uncertain times. They must compete not only with one another but with the equally competitive classes of the past three or four Junes. How can America make room for all of them? Elizabeth Wiegard, a graduate of Fordham University in New York City, who is determinedly planning a Ph.D. in medieval studies, voices their anxieties: "I get to feeling pretty bleak sometimes. I have sort of an apocalyptic view of the world." In a Carnegie Foundation study of U.S. college students, Senior Fellow Arthur Levine reported "a sense among today's undergraduates that they are passengers on a sinking ship, a Titanic if you will."

But hardy American optimism prevails. Most young people seem to feel that if they are on a Titanic, then they deserve to go first class. Says Martha Greene, director of career services at Barnard College: "This class has very high expectations of itself to be professionally excellent and high achieving." As Bob Kemp puts it, "If you work hard and you're not out to get anybody, you'll be a success. It's like the Rolling Stones say--you may not always get what you want, but in the end you might find that you get what you need." --ByEllie McGrath. Reported by Maureen Dowd/New York and Steven Holmes/ Los Angeles

With reporting by Maureen Dowd, Steven Holmes

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