Posted on Mon, Aug. 25, 2003

The Kansas City Star

The millennials arrive at college with life plans and respect for their parents
By DON O'BRIANT
Cox News Service

They grew up plugged into the Internet, always cooked their popcorn in a microwave and never watched TV without a remote control. They probably never played Pac-Man., and they think Kansas, Chicago, America and Alabama are places, not musical groups.

Meet the millennials, the generation that has taken over college campuses in droves. Unlike some of their predecessors, they have no interest in sit-ins, anti-war marches or rebellions against authority.

The post-1982 kids sometimes known as echo boomers, Generation Y and Generation Next respect their parents, want clear rules set for themselves and are determined to be successful.

At least that's what authors Neil Howe and William Strauss learned in researching their books, Millennials Go to College and Millennials Rising.

"They are optimistic, team-oriented and they closely resemble the `Greatest Generation' that fought World War II," said Howe, a Yale-educated historian who is considered one of the nation's leading experts on generations and historical cycles. "They are planners and goal-setters."

That's apparently true for millennials entering colleges. At an orientation program at Georgia State University in Atlanta, John Hardin, 18, announced that he was getting a degree in criminal justice.

"I've had my career planned out for as long as I can remember," Hardin said.

Carmen Boykin, 18, an entering freshman at Spelman College in Atlanta, already knows what she wants to be doing five years from now.

"I plan to be in law school at Emory," she said. "I've known what kind of career I wanted since middle school."

Shirley Anne Cruz, 18, and LaToya McClendon, 18, are just as focused on their education at Georgia State.

"You have to be a planner now," said McClendon, who is majoring in education and wants to be a teacher. "You really don't get jobs unless you know what you're doing and where you're going."

Cruz, who moved to Atlanta from Puerto Rico four years ago, has wanted to be a doctor since she was a little girl.

"I've always set goals," she said. "Coming from a different background, you have to prove yourself."

These students are part of the largest population group since the baby boom of the 1950s and '60s. More than 81 million millennials were born in the United States from 1982 through 2002, compared with 87.2 million boomers born before 1961. And more are coming. The Census Bureau predicts the biggest segment of the new generation will reach its peak between 2005 and 2011.

Experts such as Howe expect enormous changes in society -- and in higher education. Colleges already are struggling to meet surging enrollments while operating with smaller budgets. And educators are having to adapt to college students who are the most protected generation in history.

Parents of millennials have been obsessive about ensuring the safety of their children, Howe said. When the first wave was born in the early 1980s, "Baby on Board" signs began popping up on minivans. They were buckled into child-safety seats, fitted with bike helmets, carpooled to numerous after-school activities and hovered over by what Howe describes as "helicopter parents."

The result is a generation that feels secure, close to their parents and comfortable with authority, Howe said. That, say some educators, is good and bad.

"They're much more focused than students were a decade ago," said Catherine Wood Brooks, vice president for student life at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. "Things are planned and their time is very structured."

The problem, said Wood Brooks, who has been studying the impact of millennials on education, is that they rely so much on their parents' guidance that they are maturing less rapidly.

"I've had to speak to some parents about their becoming so involved in their students' lives at college," she said.

"But the students welcome it. They share the same values, the same political beliefs. They even dress like their parents."

This conformity is troubling to educators like Wood Brooks who believe college is a place for students to challenge authority and ask questions.

Other educators welcome students who respond well to structure and authority. "What we're seeing is a different kind of college student," said Brian Wooten, coordinator of student activities at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. "They value teamwork and they're incredibly optimistic. And they've had more structured activities. They're used to being taken to soccer practice and things like that."

Millennials not only don't mind being overprotected and overscheduled, but many also welcome it. Jessica Rhodes, 19, of Kennesaw State University spent her high school years in numerous activities, including student government, chorus and track and field.

"I was pretty busy and my mother always kept track of me. I liked it because we had a very close relationship."

McClendon, a Georgia State freshman, had freedom in high school, but her mother always knew where she was and who she was with. Now, even though her mother has encouraged her to move into the dorm, she wants to stay at home.

Cruz, who grew up in a very structured home environment, credits her parents with her success in school. "Did I rebel? Every now and then I did something different, but I've never disrespected my parents. They've been great role models."

The millennials' cocoonlike upbringing is part of the reason Howe expects them to be the next "greatest generation."

"They feel like they are special," Howe said. "They have been treated that way by their parents, by the government and the school system. They are team players who tend to be conservative and much more cautious than previous generations."

In a survey Howe conducted, 94 percent of the group said they shared their parents' values.

"I believe in a lot of things my parents do," said Josh Evans, 18, a summer intern at CNN who is attending the University of North Carolina this fall. They're both politically liberal, for instance.

"But I've been able to expand my values, too. Because my parents are from the South and moved to New York, I have this sense of New York smarts and Southern hospitality."

They may share their parents' values, Howe said, but they don't necessarily want to emulate their behavior. He cites studies that show that rates of tobacco and alcohol use, violent crime, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and suicides are way down among today's teenagers.

This trend is part of a historical cycle, Howe said. Like millennials, the Greatest Generation (born 1901-1924) followed the notorious Lost Generation (1883-1900) in which drug and alcohol abuse was rampant. The Silent Generation (1925-1942) grew up as the children of war and depression.

Boomers (1943-1960) rebelled against the conformity of the Silent Generation. The Gen-Xers (1961-1981) were criticized as slackers and grew up in a culture of rising divorces, parental neglect and a "Reality Bites" economy.

Changes occur when a generation realizes it's no longer the generation, Howe said. "The boomers realized that when MTV and hip-hop hit the scene. Xers are beginning to realize that now. The future belongs to the millennials."

Respond to this article