Section Summaries of Michael Moffatt’s

"College Life: Undergraduate Culture and Higher Education"

Introduction

Anthropologist Michael Moffatt spent two years in a Rutgers University dormitory in order to study how contemporary American students live.

College Life in the 1980s

Students thought personal growth and socializing were just as important as formal education.

Work and Play

American college life has traditionally stressed extracurricular fun, and this has not changed even though graduates in the 1980s face a job market where educational credentials are increasingly important.

Autonomy

The liberalization of dorm rules in the 1960s left college students in control of their private lives and subject to relatively few restrictions.

Friends and Lovers

The focal points of students’ nonacademic life are friendship and sex, both of which are often linked with partying.

Implications

College professors and administrators do not challenge students’ priorities because many of them will lose their university jobs if students are no longer attracted to campuses by the pleasures of college life.