by Mikal J. Harris

DE Campus Life Editor

As a member of the 1997 freshman class, Alescia Fentry definitely is in tune with the majority of her peers nationwide.

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Research suggests that Fentry, a finance major from Chicago, is attending college to secure her future. Although learning more about philosophies, cultures and experiences is an important facet of education for Fentry, obtaining an academic degree is indeed her ticket to financial prosperity.

I came to college to earn a degree and get some money, Fentry said. That’s the only way to survive.

Fentry’s ideas are in accordance with other college freshmen, according to researchers. The annual nationwide poll by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles shows that two suggested goals of education, to be very well off financially and to develop a meaningful philosophy of life, have switched places in the last three decades since the survey was administered.

In the survey taken at the start of the fall 1997 semester, 74.9 percent of freshmen chose being well off as an essential goal and 40.8 percent chose developing a philosophy. In 1968, the numbers were reversed, with 40.8 percent choosing financial security and 82.5 percent citing the importance of developing a philosophy.

Learning about other subjects and sampling new experiences is a benefit of taking a broad spectrum of classes especially for students wanting to broaden their minds. Fentry agrees that those classes are important.

Still, developing a philosophy of life is not the main reason she wants a bachelor’s degree. Fentry is career-minded, and she is attending college especially for the classes she needs now to make the big money later.

It was important for me to further my education and to get the knowledge and skills necessary for my career, she said. Some of those other classes may help me farther down the road.

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It has taken almost 30 years for most of America’s college freshmen to reach that same conclusion.

The Annual College Freshmen Survey has been administered to more than 9 million college freshmen at 1,500 American institutions since 1966. UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) has sponsored the survey since 1973. The survey questions the attitudes and beliefs of students as they enter college, and HERI catalogs and studies those results to aid college administrators.

The data for the 1997 survey was obtained from 348,465 freshmen at 665 institutions nationwide, including SIUC.

But while those survey results show that freshmen are mainly looking for dollar signs in their futures, they still may be getting the mind-opening experience of a college education.

Wanda Oakey, chief academic adviser for the College of Liberal Arts, said she sees enough students to understand the various reasons people attend college. She agrees that today’s freshmen are dollar-oriented, but she said college courses are able to fulfill other needs these students may not have originally desired.

People feel they need the money to buy the things that will let them live at their chosen level, she said. But as a student goes through college, they do get the education.

Oakey, who oversees academic advisement for a number of SIUC students enrolled in COLA, is a staunch believer in the value of a full college education. She said the survey results are not surprising.

It’s not a very sudden thing, she said. It’s been building over the years, and it is a reflection of our society.

Still, Oakey believes a college degree can open other opportunities than strictly financial ones.

Education is good in itself and growth and development is good itself, she said. General education and core curriculum classes were set up to give new students ways to expand their educational opportunities.

Oakey said that although students are loath to take classes they may not need to use in their careers after college, general classes are offered so that universities can make students fuller people once they obtain degrees.

This is called a university for some reason, and a university is not a narrow concept, she said.

College freshmen are still very young almost always, and given the opportunity they can use the university to great social, philosophical and economic advantages.

True to Oakey’s observation, SIUC undecided freshman Devonna Steward said she likes some of the core curriculum classes she has taken at SIUC. She also attended college to gain new experiences outside of her Chicago home.

But as the survey results indicate, Steward said she still plans to choose either computer science or business administration as a major for primarily financial reasons although another idea fuels her ambition.

I came to get away from home and to choose a career that will allow me to make a lot of money, she said, so I don’t have to work as hard to make a lot of money.