The Millennial Population
studentPOLL: Research dispels Millennial theories
9. Millennials are not aware of nor do they associate themselves with the name "Millennial Generation."
Given all the public and media hype about the "Millennial Generation," we decided to ask students what name, if any, they thought was used to describe their generation. Only 6 percent of students associated their generation with the name "Millennials." In fact, 43 percent reported that they didn't know or that none of the six generational names tested was the name used to describe their own generation, and as many identified themselves as Generation X or Y. (Chart 9)
10. Millennials are more financially advantaged than previous generations of college students.
In spite of the many initiatives over decades on our nation's campuses and in the legislative and executive chambers of federal and state government to make higher education more accessible to the poor and economically disadvantaged, the opposite has occurred. As CIRP data convincingly demonstrate, today's freshmen come from households with incomes much higher in comparison to the average American than those of a generation ago, and the gap is steadily widening. Parental income for the Millennial generation is outpacing the national income by more than a two-to-one margin. In the last 35 years, CIRP notes in its report The American Freshman: Forty Year Trends, "college student parental income rose from $65,700 to $76,400 (inflation-adjusted), representing a 16 percent increase, while national income rose from $44,900 to $47,800 (inflation-adjusted), representing a 6.5 percent increase." (Chart 10) In other words, efforts to make higher education more egalitarian have largely failed. While higher education has much greater racial diversity, economic diversity has narrowed, and the class divide widened. Sadly, Millennials represent a more privileged slice of the population than their parents' generation.
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