Survey Finds More Students Worried about Finances

Family unemployment and a growing student loan burden are making American college students increasingly anxious about finances, according to a national survey by University of California - Los Angeles researchers, writes Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times. Nearly 67% of freshmen at four-year colleges and universities said they had at least some concerns about paying their tuition bills, the highest percentage expressing such anxieties in a dozen years, the annual study found. And with unemployment affecting many families, about 53% of freshmen who took part in the survey last autumn said they carried student loans, up about 4% from the previous year and the highest in nine years.
The report, considered the nation's most comprehensive assessment of college student attitudes, found that 4.5% of the students' fathers were unemployed, the largest jobless proportion among fathers since the survey began 44 years ago. Nearly 8% of the respondents' mothers were jobless, the most in 30 years.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0108 24 Januari 2010