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Students care less about education and the environment than their future standard of living

Photograph by Cole Carside

Every election campaign season, experts suggest that the best way for political parties to rock the youth vote is to focus on “the student issues”—often defined as tuition and the environment. Omeed Asadi, a third-year communications student at York University, hears it all the time. “In Vari Hall, which you have to cross to get to pretty much every class, there’s always the York Federation of Students rallying against high tuition, or green activists against pollution,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong. I respect those issues. But I don’t think that’s all there is to it.” Asadi also cares about health care, the tenor of parliamentary discourse and fiscal responsibility.

He’s not the only young Canadian who thinks there’s more at stake in this election than tuition hikes and the health of the planet, according to an exclusive new poll from the Historica-Dominion Institute. The survey asked 831 youth between the ages of 18 to 24 what issues concerned them. Participants were given 10 statements, each capturing a different election issue, and asked to rank them from most to least concerning. Turns out the average young voter is a lot more like Asadi than the student activists making all the noise. “They’re certainly thinking of longer-term issues earlier in their lives than we would have thought,” says Jeremy Diamond, a director at Historica-Dominion.

The most common concern for youth? “That my standard of living will be lower than my parents,” which 63 per cent ranked in their top three concerns. This was consistent across party lines and from coast to coast, although it was significantly more common among young people in the economically stagnant Atlantic region (75 per cent). “We tend to think of students as idealistic,” says Diamond, “but this shows an overriding worry that they won’t be as successful as their parents.”

Dietlind Stolle, a McGill University political scientist, cautions that the “standard of living” statement is likely capturing more than just economic concerns. That may be true, but it’s not the only evidence from the survey that shows students are worried about the country’s financial footing. “Fear of another economic recession” is a concern of 43 per cent, ranking it third. In fact, youth put the country’s bank accounts far ahead of their own; “paying for my post-secondary education” is a top-three concern of just 18 per cent.

This heavy focus on the economy doesn’t surprise Janni Aragon, a political scientist at the University of Victoria, who studies young voters. “The millennials are keenly aware of the economy,” she says. “A lot of my own students worry that after graduation they’ll have to move back in with their parents, because they won’t be able to afford an apartment, God forbid a house.” Economic worries, surprisingly, are especially prevalent among left-leaning students. Among respondents, recessions are top of mind for 63 per cent of Green supporters, 48 per cent of those who plan to vote for the NDP, 45 per cent of Liberal supporters, and just 27 per cent of young Tories.

It isn’t that they’re concerned with finding work—“getting a job or keeping my current job” was only in the top-three lists of eight per cent—so much as fear about the economic burden they may inherit. “Paying off the national debt” is a top-three concern for 24 per cent.

The second-biggest concern for youth overall is “that the health care system won’t be there for me when I need it.” In British Columbia and Atlantic Canada, 58 per cent prioritize this concern. Overall, 49 per cent listed it in their top three. Jessica Wong, a first-time voter at McGill University, says health care is the issue that has the biggest influence on her vote, though she admits it’s an issue she has never discussed with her peers, unlike tuition or the environment. The 19-year-old chemistry student has little experience with the system, “but I think health care is indicative of how a country treats each other—whether they just look after the rich people or look after everyone.”

Fourth on the list, with nearly one in three (31 per cent) ranking it in their top three, is a concern for “the erosion of democracy.” This was fairly consistent nationwide, though it’s somewhat more pressing in Quebec. The only defence-related option was “foreign threats to Canada,” which 23 per cent made a top-three concern. “I would have expected it to be lower,” says Aragon, citing the stereotype of young people as pacifists. That said, she wasn’t surprised to learn that Alberta has the highest percentage of young hawks (32 per cent).

Only near the bottom of the list do the so-called “student issues” appear. Less than one in five (18 per cent) say that “paying for my post-secondary education” is a top-three concern. But the biggest surprise is how few put the environment as a top priority. Only 13 per cent of youth agree “that the environment will be ruined without more action,” putting it second from the bottom. More shocking is that in English Canada, the students who care most about the Earth are far more likely to say they’ll vote Conservative (23 per cent) than Liberal (eight per cent), NDP (eight per cent), or even Green (seven per cent).

Even if it’s not their priority, students still do care greatly about high tuition and the environment. When presented with the statement, “the government should provide more money to help students pay for higher education,” 88 per cent either somewhat or strongly agree. And 86 per cent agree that “the government should be doing more to protect the environment.”

But that’s where the consensus ends. On every other policy position, students are more split. Large numbers “neither agree or disagree” with statements about raising corporate taxes, opening the health care system to more private money, or increasing immigration. “That may indicate,” says Aragon, “a lack of understanding or exposure.”

That’s no doubt a reality for some students, but not for Asadi. He’s read all the platforms and can quote Michael Ignatieff’s about untendered fighter jet contracts and the billion-dollar G20. “It’s so short-sighted to focus only on tuition,” he says. “I’m only in school for one more year. Then everything affects me.”

The online survey of 831 Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24 was conducted on Uthink’s online national research panel between April 8-13. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Fewer jobs. Lower pay. Higher taxes. Now the Screwed Generation is starting to push back.

This January, the first baby boomers turn 65. The huge post-Second World War generation—which numbers 76 million in the United States, makes up almost a third of Canada’s population, and according to one estimate, controls 80 per cent of Britain’s wealth—will continue to enter their dotage at the rate of tens of thousands per day for the next 20 years. By 2050, there will be 30 million Americans aged 75 to 85, three in 10 Europeans will be 65-plus, and more than 40 per cent of Japan’s population will be elderly. In Canada, the ratio of workers to retirees—currently five to one—will have been halved by 2036. And despite the odd dissenter, the generation that still oddly finds Paul McCartney relevant has made clear its intention to take everything it feels it has coming. It will be up to all who trail in their wake to pay for their privilege.

Common sense, not to mention decency, wouldn’t call that just. But an outsized, over-entitled, and self-obsessed demographic is awfully hard for politicians to ignore. Take Britain’s example. In last spring’s general election, the most effective ad run by David Cameron’s Conservatives was also one of the simplest: a close-up of a newborn baby, wriggling in a bassinet as a music box tinkled in the background. “Born four weeks ago, eight pounds, three ounces. With his dad’s nose, mum’s eyes, and Gordon Brown’s debt,” intoned a female voice. “Thanks to Labour’s debt crisis, every child in Britain is born owing £17,000. They deserve better.” The point was impossible to miss: the time had come to stop mortgaging the country’s future.

As his first act, the new prime minister, a 44-year-old Gen Xer, cut his and his ministers’ pay by five per cent, and froze all their salaries for five years. Tackling the U.K.’s $177.5-billion budget deficit and $1.6-trillion-plus national debt—annual interest payments alone stand at $70 billion—would require everyone to sacrifice, he told Britons. But there were also expectations that the burden wouldn’t be equally shared. After all, one of Cameron’s leading wonks, David “Two Brains” Willetts, now the minister for universities and science, had published a rather pointed manifesto, The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future—and How They Can Give It Back, just before the election. After their victory, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, applauded the coming reckoning for a generation—his own—that had “eaten through all that abundance like hungry locusts.” And even as the new government’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, stood before Parliament in mid-October to announce $131 billion in spending cuts over the next four years—and the elimination of as many as 500,000 public sector jobs—the protect-the-youth rhetoric continued. “Today’s the day when Britain steps back from the brink,” he said, ensuring “that we do not saddle our children with the interest on the interest on the interest of the debts we were not ourselves prepared to pay.”

The reality, however, proved to be somewhat different. The age when U.K. citizens can start drawing old-age pension would gradually increase from 65 to 66, but other entitlements like free eye tests and prescriptions for the elderly would remain untouched, as well as winter fuel allowances, and free local transit for anyone over 60. Among the biggest budget losers was the department for education, facing an overall reduction of 10.8 per cent, which according to one economic think tank will translate to funding cuts for 60 per cent of primary schools, and 87 per cent of secondary schools. And the legacy of “Two Brains” for Britain’s shafted youth? A 40 per cent cut to post-secondary teaching grants, and a doubling—or in some cases, tripling—of tuition, to as much as $14,500 a year.

On Nov. 10, more than 50,000 angry students gathered in London to rally against the cuts. A video of Nick Clegg, the Liberal-Democrat leader and deputy prime minister, promising to do away with university fees during the election campaign, was greeted with choruses of “wanker, wanker.” “They’re proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalize our colleges and universities,” said Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union of Students. “We’re in the fight of our lives. We face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun.” Later on, a crowd of several thousand descended on the Conservative Party headquarters, trading punches with police, smashing windows, lighting fires, and for a time, occupying the building.

“The situation for young people is not terribly good,” Ed Howker, a 29-year-old London journalist and author, says in a classic bit of British understatement. “And there’s no sense from the government that they have the interests of the next 30 or 40 years of Britons in mind.” Of the country’s 2.45 million unemployed, close to 60 per cent are under the age of 30.The new budget has not only frozen civil service hires, it scrapped two youth jobs funds, slashed rent subsidies, and cut the money for new housing by half. Howker, who along with Shiv Malik wrote the just-released Jilted Generation: How Britain Bankrupted its Youth, says the sense of despair is becoming overwhelming. “Our generation just seems to be a lot worse off. In terms of key things like getting stable housing, or a well-paid job, or a successful career, we just don’t have it.” The boomers’ aren’t evil, he says, but they nonetheless bear much of the responsibility. The generation that relentlessly mythologizes its “peace and love” heyday became ardent consumers as they aged, and ended up moulding politics in their “me-first” image. “It’s a consumer version of democracy, where politicians realized that if they merely satisfied the short-term desires of their electorate, rather than think in the long term and make good decisions on behalf of the future of the country, they would win elections,” Howker argues. The bills become somebody else’s problem.

Want a scary number? How about $1.5 trillion, the amount the C.D. Howe Institute estimates Canada’s rapidly aging boomers are going to cost Ottawa and the provinces in extra health and pension expenses over the next 50 years. Or perhaps 2,500, the number of new long-term care facilities the Canadian Medical Association says will be needed to accommodate the doubling of Canada’s 65-plus population in two decades. Sixty thousand is how many RNs the Canadian Nurses Association predicts we will be short by 2022. Or maybe just one per cent, the expected annual amount of real per-capita GDP growth in Canada over the next 30 years as boomers leave the work force—less than half of what we’ve experienced over the past four decades.

Combine a demographic bulge with a falling birth rate and ever-increasing life expectancy (now 80.7 years at birth in Canada), and pretty much all the figures start looking ugly. “We have a significant challenge ahead of us,” says Chris Ragan, a professor of macroeconomics and economic policy at McGill. “The tax base will slow down, and spending will speed up. We can’t just do nothing.”

The social and economic consequences of letting boys fall behind

The trick to having a baby girl, according to researchers in the Netherlands, is a calcium- and magnesium-rich diet, full of hard cheese, rhubarb, spinach, canned salmon and tofu. It’s also important, claim the authors of the study, for women to steer clear of salty foods, potatoes and bananas. Though the study was based on a small sample, it wouldn’t be a shock if the results prompted prospective parents to stock their fridges accordingly.

As Robert Bly and others prophesied in the 1990s, when they retreated to the woods to beat drums and exhort men to embrace their inner caveman, the modern male is in danger of losing his way. The process apparently begins early. On average, boys earn lower marks, study less, and are more likely to repeat a grade than girls. Young men are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to graduate university than young women. And while they still dominate in engineering and computer science, men are outnumbered in most professional programs, including law and medicine.

Today, the average Canadian university campus is 58 per cent female. In fact, at some schools, men only make up about 30 to 35 per cent of the students. “Any country allowing 60/40 female-male college graduation rates is not putting its ‘best team’ forward,” argues Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail. “Men need a degree just to get to the starting line.

College has become the new high school; that degree is what employers look for as a guarantee of basic social and communication skills.”

Nobody worth listening to is calling for society to turn back the clock on the advances made by women in the last 40 years. Writing in the Observer last year, Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the London-based Higher Education Policy Institute, warned against simply ignoring the gap.

“It matters in the same way that 30 years ago it mattered that fewer girls went to university than boys,” he wrote. “Graduates, after all, tend to form the elites of society and, as women have come to dominate in higher education, we should expect these elites to change gender over time, too. That itself is no bad thing. What is intolerable is that significant numbers of young (and not so young) people are excluding themselves—or perhaps being excluded because of aspects of our school system—from joining these elites.”

Indira Samarasekera, the president of the University of Alberta, was more direct when she described the gender gap at post-secondary schools to the Edmonton Journal as a “demographic bomb.” She went on to say that programs to encourage female CEOs should take a backseat to a much bigger concern: “that we’ll wake up in 20 years and we will not have the benefit of enough male talent at the heads of companies and elsewhere.”

This is not to say that women run the world—yet. There’s no denying that a wage gap—and a glass ceiling—persists in the workplace. In Canada, even a young woman with a university degree earns about 90 cents to every dollar earned by a man with a similar level of education.

But women now experience lower unemployment rates than men, and one large-scale American study showed the start of the kind of change it has taken generations to accomplish. It found that childless urban women under the age of 30 earn, on average, eight per cent more than their male peers. The gap is even wider in places like New York City (17 per cent) and Los Angeles (12 per cent). Whether these same young women continue to lead the next decade will depend largely on how many of them decide to stay home full-time to raise children, or even just get off the fast track by moving to part-time. Still, a lot more young women than men have been able to take advantage of the higher earnings that come with higher levels of education.

As the number of stay-at-home dads has tripled in the last three decades, women are more and more the family’s primary breadwinners, a trend sped up by the recession, which struck male-dominated industries, including manufacturing and construction, the hardest. Men accounted for an estimated 71 per cent of the 400,000 jobs lost in Canada during the downturn. Thanks to a commitment to education, young women seem better positioned for the knowledge- and service-based economy of the future. The majority of the job sectors expected to grow the most in North America during the next decade are ones traditionally filled by women, such as nursing.

Recession drives the biggest spike in enrolment since 2003

Despite the shaky job market for university grads during the recession, or because of it, new enrolment figures show about 38,000 more students enrolled in Canadian universities this fall over last.

About 870,000 full-time students enrolled this year, an increase of 29,000 undergraduates and 9,000 graduate students from last year, according to figures released by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

Herb O’Heron, a senior adviser at the AUCC, says it’s the biggest increase in enrolment since 2003 and the recession is driving demand for spots.

“Part of it is the recognition of the value of a degree,” he said. “Even in the midst of a recession, the jobs for university graduates continue to rise.”

Students and professors say they are encouraged by the display of faith in higher education, but remain skeptical about whether universities can deliver what they promise.

The spike in enrolment is occurring as cash-strapped governments make cuts to already underfunded universities, which, they say, degrades the quality of education for students who continue to pay sky high tuition fees.

James Turk, executive director of Canadian Association of University Teachers says while the government recognizes that education is key to economic recovery, it is not placing enough emphasis on funding.

To reach the funding level seen in the 1980s, when there were fewer university students, the government would need to increase funding by $4.2 billion a year, Turk said.

Meanwhile, as enrolment increases, universities cram students into the seats and aisles of already packed lecture halls, which degrades the quality of education students receive for their money.

Most lost jobs expected to be in operations, trades, advisory and technical positions

The greatest job losses are expected to effect the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents some 4,265 university staff in operations, trades, advisory and technical positions. “Of course, we don’t like it,” says AUPE president Doug Knight.

“The university has put a lot of their shortfalls on last year’s budget. A lot of the money lost is from the worldwide financial crisis, where it was inevitable something was gonna break. Their funding shortfall is because of endowments and they really shouldn’t be relying on endowment funding.”

For more on this story, click here.

If you’re staggering under student debt, bankruptcy might not be the best way out

According to a recent article in the The Toronto Star, the federal government’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency act makes it pretty difficult to dodge student loans through bankruptcy.

If you really want to declare bankruptcy, business writer James Daw says you’d better have a good excuse for not paying, “even after the five to seven years… that the legislation allows for such debts to be wiped clear.” Students must allow show that they tried in “good faith” to repay the loans and are now absolutely unable to pay.

After one 29-year-old medical student suffered a traumatic brain injury while cycling in Vietnam after graduation, she still owed Royal Bank $134,000, which was partially to cover her student loans. She was granted a discharge of those debts, and is now living on social assistance.

But, according to The Star, not everyone who asks for bankruptcy will qualify.

One Mississauga woman raised a 16-year-old son on her own until he decided to move in with his father. Although she currently makes about $53,000 a year, she declared bankruptcy in 2000 when she owed student loans totalling $21,000.

According to the bankruptcy registar, the woman made a few questionable decisions, which included selling her 12-year-old car and leasing a new Volkswagen to commute from Mississauga to her downtown Toronto job and to visit her son in Ottawa. She also provided her son with a cellphone.

Most Canadians would find it troubling that she wanted to be free of loans for the education that helped her find her job and qualify for a public sector pension, said the registrar. “There is no good reason why repayment of the loans for those studies ought not be made, over a lengthy period of time, perhaps even… her working life.”

Despite attempts to save money, university cites “extraordinary financial challenges”

The Boston Herald is reporting that, in the wake of a 30 per cent drop in its endowment, Harvard University will be laying off 275 employees over the next week.

“Difficult circumstances have called for difficult decisions,” wrote Harvard president Drew Faust in an e-mail, citing the school’s “extraordinary financial challenges.”

Since January, the school’s administration has tried to save money by cancelling travel spending, reducing discretionary spending, and freezing the salaries of 9,000 employees. Buyouts were offered to 1,600 workers; 500  accepted the offer.

According to an e-mail from the school’s vice president for human resources, the layoffs will be split between administrative and professional positions as well as clerical and technical workers. Forty other employees will see their hours cut.

“These steps have helped to keep the number of involuntary reductions as small as possible,” reads the HR e-mail.  “Unfortunately, further cuts are needed in order for Harvard to adjust to the institution’s new economic reality.”

Students are paying for art supplies, sports equipment, and core materials, finds new report

Students are forking over their own money for art supplies, sports equipment and, in some cases, even having to pay for materials in core learning classes such as science or French just to meet their educational needs, a new report suggests.

“You’re almost penalized if you’re not essentially good at basic math,” said Jonathan Scott, 19, for the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, painting a picture of students’ struggle.

“If you want to be an artist you’re kind of less important to the school system,” said Scott, who represented students at the Simcoe County District School Board during his last year of high school in 2007-08.

Now, an organization committed to improving public education wants the provincial government to address these concerns.

A new report from People for Education is calling for a “renewed vision” for public schools and lists more than a dozen areas where it wants Ontario to take action.

“We seem to be squeezing out the arts and culture,” said Annie Kidder, the group’s executive director.

Kidder said students in high schools are having to fit arts education and sports activities into timetables already packed with basic credit requirements. Many times, students end up paying for these extra opportunities outside of school.

It’s also an issue for children in elementary schools, where fundraising initiatives in affluent neighbourhoods typically mean those schools have more resources. At home, those parents can also offer their kids books and money for recreation programs.

But in poorer neighbourhoods, which lack the ability to fundraise and can’t provide extra-curricular activities at home, children are “doubly disadvantaged,” Kidder said.

“What’s worrying about this to us is the potential for inequity,” she said.

Eleven per cent had thoughts of suicide or hurting themselves, half didn’t seek professional help

Stress over grades. Financial worries. Trouble sleeping. Feeling hopeless.

So much for those carefree college days. The vast majority of U.S. college students are feeling stressed these days, and significant numbers are at risk of depression, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll

Eighty-five per cent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits.

At the same time, 42 per cent said they had felt down, depressed or hopeless several days during the past two weeks, and 13 per cent showed signs of being at risk for at least mild depression, based on the students’ answers to a series of questions that medical practitioners use to diagnose depressive illness.

These students complained of trouble sleeping, having little energy or feeling down or hopeless – and most hadn’t gotten professional help.

Eleven per cent had had thoughts that they’d be better off dead or about hurting themselves.

That’s not just a case of the blues to be shrugged off by taking a break with Facebook or going for a workout.

Kristin Potts, who graduated from Penn State last week with a 4.0 in chemistry and will go on for a master’s, says she’s seen warning signs among fellow classmates.

“I had a couple friends who didn’t come out of their rooms very much,” she said. “I tried my hardest not to be like that, but I definitely saw it.”

At the University of Maryland in College Park, students were sobered by two suicides within two weeks this past semester.

“It was pretty scary,” says Aimee Mayer, a junior studying psychology. She says there’s lots of information and help available for students with mental disorders, but “there’s still a stigma associated with mental health issues and so a lot of people don’t want to go to those services. They feel like they’re less cool or something like that if they go. It’s like a sign of vulnerability.”

Megan Salame, a sophomore studying civil engineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., says she’d turn first to her parents if she felt depressed. But she hastened to add, “Depressed – I don’t really like to use that word because it sounds so negative.”

Mental health disorders like depression typically begin relatively early in life, doctors say, and college is a natural time for symptoms to emerge.

The AP-mtvU poll surveyed students at 40 U.S. colleges, exploring the students’ state of mind and the pressures they face, including strains from the tough economy. It found substantial numbers of students with symptoms of depression, many of them failing to receive professional help. Among the poll results:

• Nine per cent of students were at risk of moderate to severe depression. That’s in line with a recent medical study that found seven per cent of young people had depression.
• Almost a quarter of those with a parent who had lost a job during the school year showed signs of at least mild depression, more than twice the percentage of those who hadn’t had a parent lose a job. More than twice as many students whose parents had lost a job said they had seriously considered ending their own life, 13 per cent to five per cent.
• Among those who reported serious symptoms of moderate depression or worse, just over a quarter had ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
• More than half of those who reported having seriously considered suicide at some point in the previous year had not received any treatment or counseling.
• Just a third of those with moderate symptoms of depression or worse had received any support or treatment from a counselor or mental health professional since starting college.
• Nearly half of those diagnosed with at least moderate symptoms weren’t familiar with counselling resources on campus.

Anne Marie Albano, an associate professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, said college is a “tender age” developmentally, a period when young adults start taking responsibility for their lives. They’re selecting careers, moving toward financial independence, establishing long-term relationships, perhaps marrying, having children.

The most troubling thing coming out of the AP-mtvU poll and other studies of young adults dealing with depression, she said, is that “they don’t get help” at a time when they’re just venturing off on their own.

“They have to learn to become their own monitors about their mental health and yet they have no training to do that,” she said.

Alison Malmon, whose older brother, Brian, committed suicide when she was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, decided to do something about it. After searching unsuccessfully for a group that she could bring to campus that would encourage students to talk about mental health issues and seek help, Malmon created Open Minds. That group has grown into the non-profit Active Minds, with chapters on more than more than 200 campuses.

Malmon, 27, executive director of the non-profit, says students don’t have to worry about how to draw the line between everyday blues and clinical depression.

“You don’t need to have a serious, diagnosable depression to go talk to someone,” she said. “If you feel down or if you feel like you’re not yourself, go talk to somebody about it.”

The AP-mtvU poll found that 84 per cent of students said they’d know where to turn for help if they were in serious emotional distress or thinking about hurting themselves. Most said they’d go first to friends or family. Twenty per cent said they’d try school counselling.

That means it may be up to friends and family to guide students toward professional help where warranted, said Malmon.

Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health, said students need to understand that depression is “a very treatable illness.”

Campus counselling centres are a good resource, he said, although they’re not all set up take care of serious mental illnesses.

“There should be somebody there who could at least assess this, and in some cases offer reassurance that ‘I’m sure you’ll feel better after exams are over,”‘ he said. Serious cases can be referred for treatment, he said – “and treatment works.”

Depressive disorders afflict an estimated 9.5 per cent of adult Americans in a given year, or about 20.9 million people. The median age for onset is 30.

According to the mental health institute, the first step to getting appropriate treatment is to visit a doctor. Certain medications and medical conditions, such as viruses or a thyroid disorder, can cause the same symptoms as depression. If doctors rule out a medical cause, then they should conduct a psychological evaluation or refer the patient to a mental health professional.

The poll was conducted April 22 to May 4 by Edison Media Research and involved interviews with 2,240 undergraduate students ages 18-24 at four-year colleges. To protect privacy, the schools where the poll was conducted are not being identified, the students who responded were not asked for their names and people interviewed for this story were not part of the survey. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The TV network mtvU is operated by the MTV Networks division of Viacom and available at many colleges. MtvU’s sponsorship of the poll is related to its mental-health campaign “Half of Us,” which it runs with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit group that works to reduce suicide among young people.

- Associated Press writers Ann Sanner in Washington and Genaro Armas in State College, Pa., AP Television Producer Faryl Ury and Multimedia Editor Kevin Vineys contributed to this report.

A simple way to time the market: follow the money — and do the opposite

If you’d been listening to Ray Soifer for the past several years, your investment portfolio would probably make you the envy of most so-called market experts. Since the early ’80s, Soifer has been using a system for timing long-term stock markets that’s rarely wrong. For several years now, his system has been suggesting to take your money out of the market. Last year it was screaming that a bust was coming.

Soifer’s method is simple, and more than a bit curious: he tracks the number of Harvard MBA graduates who take jobs on Wall Street or with investment banks, hedge funds and venture capital firms. If more than 30 per cent of Harvard’s graduating class takes one of those jobs, it’s a long-term ’sell’ signal (40 per cent of the class of 2007 went to Wall Street). If less than 10 per cent take the plunge into finance, it’s a ‘buy.’ In other words, the more Harvard alums on Wall Street, the worse things are likely to get.

The indicator isn’t really a knock on the quality or character of the Harvard biz school grad. Soifer is one of them (he graduated in the class of ‘65). “It’s not so much that the Harvard MBAs are any greedier than anybody else—certainly no greedier than law school or medical school graduates,” he says. “But it’s really more the behaviour of the Wall Street firms themselves.” When things are good on Wall Street, money starts flowing and competition and recruitment heats up, luring graduates from the prestigious school. Those hiring sprees are a pretty good sign that a boom is peaking and a bust is coming.

Next year’s number should be interesting, notes Soifer. Almost certainly, they will be down. Although, there is a lag between the hiring decisions and the state of the things on Wall Street. Next year’s numbers will include many who made career decisions in the fall of 2008, when the market was declining, but still before the meltdown. The indicator may not be in ‘buy’ territory just yet. “It takes two to three years for a market move to fully reflect itself,” he says.

Soifer acknowledges that while fairly accurate over the long term, his system is a better ‘sell’ warning than a ‘buy’ one. The last time his indicator hit the ‘buy’ level was in the early ’80s (the all-time low was in 1937).

And what does Harvard make of his indicator? “They’ve gotten used to it,” he says. But there was a period when they were not entirely pleased, he adds. “What miffed them was not that I was doing it. What miffed them was the idea that, ‘our graduates are going to that den of iniquity called Wall Street? We think better of them.’ ”