That College Look

What does college do for you? There are all kinds of partial answers--spoken sometimes in jest, sometimes in anger and once in a while in pride. But there have been no actuarial facts to give a statistician's picture of what the nation's 4,966,000 college graduates are like.

Last year TIME research workers polled a representative cross section--those whose names began with the letters Fa--of all living college graduates. Of these, 9,064 filled out and returned a ballot asking 134 questions. Alphabetically, the sample ranged from Oliver Wendell Faaborg of Willmar, Minn., a University of Minnesota graduate ('35), to Marie T. Fazzone of Bridgeport, Conn., fresh out of Connecticut College for Women ('47). The oldest was 91, the youngest 19.

For six months, banks of IBM machines in Manhattan sorted out the answers. The completed TIME study will be published in book form in the fall; not until then will college graduates named Adams or Zabrisky be able to compare themselves with the Farbsteins, Farleys and Farmers. But by last week Hubert Kay, author of the forthcoming study, had this much to report:

Success. The U.S. college graduate is 49 times as likely as the non-college man to rate Who's Who in America. And he is nearly 15 times as likely to make $10,000 a year (15.1% of the college graduates make that or more). The chances are two in three that he makes at least $4,000.

But as far as his present income goes, it doesn't matter much what grades he got at college: the A man averages only $49 a year more than his less scholarly contemporaries (one partial explanation: A students are more apt to enter low-paid occupations such as teaching, science and Government service).

The college graduate is probably a professional man or a business executive (84% of the sample are, against only 17.4% of the U.S.). Only 1% are farmers.

Attitudes. Only 26.3% of the college graduates consider themselves Democrats, 38.3% Republicans, the rest independents. The college graduate was much more likely to vote in the last national election (78.9% did) than his non-college neighbor. And the chances are one in 20 that he ran for public office himself in the past four years.

His favorite national figures are George Marshall (82.5% like him), Albert Einstein and Harold Stassen, in that order. He least likes Henry Wallace and Republican Oilman Joe Pew.

The average graduate thinks that the differences between Russia and the U.S. can be reconciled without war, and is anxious to see the United Nations strengthened. And he feels that all Americans--"Negroes, Jews, foreign-born and others" --deserve an even break (80% voted "yes").

Habits. The average male graduate is much more likely to be married (82%) than the average coed (62.4%), and his marriage is a little more likely to have weathered the years. The average college parent in the TIME survey has about two children.

The women graduates out-read the men by a wide margin, at least as far as bestsellers are concerned. Last year's far-&-away favorite (read by 48.1% of the men and 72% of the women) was Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I. Most-read magazines of both sexes, in order: Reader's Digest (46.5%), LIFE (42%), TIME (33-9%).

More women (62.5%) attend church every week or "pretty regularly" than men (50.4%). Only 17.4% of college graduates feel that religion has "little to offer."

Was College Worthwhile?

Seven out of ten graduates believe their college courses helped them "a lot" in their present occupation. If they had it to do over again, 83.5% would attend the same college, and only 2.1% would not go to college at all. But one in four wishes he had chosen another major field, and those who would do it differently vote three-to-two for more specific vocational training. The happiest profession: medicine (only 9.2% of the doctors have regrets).

Commented Author Kay last week: "Most college graduates, I suppose, remember their classmates as being all kinds: bright and not-so-bright, conscientious and lazy, rich & poor, cynical and idealistic, sophisticated and naive. But we have discovered in this survey that college graduates are actually a surprisingly homogeneous group."

Educators who had taken an advance look at the TIME survey were not sure that this homogeneity was anything for colleges to boast about. They had prided themselves on cultivating individual minds, at least among their A scholars.

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