Forget about a college education and have more sex.

That would be the advice suggested for students who value their sex lives more than a college degree. A recent survey indicates college graduates have less sex than those students who only have a high school education.

Of 10,000 people surveyed nationwide, those who had the least amount of education had the most sex.

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Surveys were conducted over the last decade by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and researched by John Robinson of the University of Maryland and Geoffrey Godbey of Penn State University.

The researchers said few surveys have asked Americans about their sexual habits. The findings of the survey not only intrigued many Americans but also the researchers themselves.

Greater educational attainment is usually associated with greater participation in all kinds of activities, from attending concerts to mountain climbing, Robinson and Godbey said in a joint statement. Sex, however, is a surprising exception.

Americans who have attended graduate school may have money and smarts, but they report being the least sexually active educational group in the population.

The survey showed that high school graduates average about 58 sexual encounters a year, whereas college graduates average 56 sexual encounters.

But, there is still hope for college students. Those who only had some college education average 62 sexual contacts in a year, the most sex out of all the levels of education.

Lewellyn Hendrix, an SIUC professor in sociology, said the difference in sexual activity is insignificant.

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If you think of the number in regard to weeks, it wouldn’t be enough to make people very much aware of the lack of sex, he said.

But students may not want to change their college plans just yet. Hendrix said accuracy is hard to obtain when doing a survey that involves sexual activity.

You can’t force someone to answer a question, he said. You get the people who are willing to talk about sex. You lose out on the shy people.

You still would encounter people in the population who would refuse to be interviewed, and you don’t know what their sex life is like. Even the Census Bureau has a hard time finding people. It’s hard to know for sure when people refuse to talk.

Still, Rich Rossi, a graduate student in sports administration from Naperville, agreed with the results of the survey.

He said the biggest factor limiting the amount of sex that a graduate student would have is the person’s available free time.

It is harder to find someone to be intimate with, he said. You spend time in class and at work. It is hard to find the time to be that committed to a person.

Eric Ortiz, a sophomore in electrical engineering from O’Fallon, said he also understands the survey because time dictates a student’s life outside of classes.

It makes sense, he said. The more educated you are, the better job you have, the more time you spend at work, and the less time you would spend at home.

But Ortiz said that when he is a graduate, he will have more sex than while in college.

I plan to have a lot of sex when I get married and graduated, he said. That’s the whole point in finishing college and getting a good job.

The lack of sex associated with a college degree does not discourage Ortiz from continuing his education.

I can see that the numbers would be frightening, but there is more to life than just sex, he said. I’d choose my career over going out and having sex. I’d rather give up a few moments of pleasure than give up a lot of fun that I would have in my career.