2017 college grads motivated by money, expect to earn big bucks

Frank Witsil | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption College graduate draws a crowd, proposes to girlfriend Adrian and his fraternity brothers started stepping after graduation. Then he surprised his girlfriend and everyone around them when he proposed to her.

This year’s college graduating class, estimated to be about 1.9 million students, wants to work in large companies with collaborative workplaces, job security and more than anything else, wants to earn a lot of money.

Students' biggest fears? Paying taxes and setting a budget.

That's according to a survey that polled thousands of college students between July 8, 2016, and June 5. It found that 21% of them expect to earn $60,000 to $80,000 a year, and 17% expect to earn more than $80,000.

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"They're expecting to make a lot more money than what they're going to make," said Mike Brown, a research analyst for LendEDU, the group that commissioned the survey. "Their projections are a little bit high."

Brown — who, at 23, is a recent college graduate himself, earning between $40,000 and $60,000 — said he was surprised by how unrealistic the student income forecasts were and how much they seemed to be motivated by income.

"Maybe they are just setting their goals high because a lot of them have a lot of student debt or something and they figure they can make a lot of money out of college," he said. "Maybe it's just a case of lack of experience and a lot of them haven't applied for jobs and figured out their worth in the open market so they can't give an accurate projection."

Thirty-six percent expected to earn $40,000 to $60,000 a year and 26%, less than $40,000.

LendEDU is a Hoboken, N.J.-based marketplace for private student loans, credit cards and personal loans.

When it came to working for large, established companies or small start-ups, 69% picked the larger company.

When asked which company culture they would rather work for, collaborative vs. competitive, the majority of students — 62% — said they would prefer to be in the collaborative workplace.

But men more than women — 43% to 34% — preferred the competitive environment.

When it came to job security vs. great benefits, the students were more evenly divided — 52% to 48% — with more students opting for security.

Again, more men than women — 58% compared to 42% — gravitated to competition and risk, saying they would work in an environment with less job security if they were rewarded for their risk with better benefits and perks.

The scariest part of graduating?

Forty-eight percent of those taking the survey answered paying taxes and setting a budget. Twenty-six percent said having to find a job; 14% said not being around their friends and 11% said having to get up early five days a week.

The one thing that the graduates prized the most in deciding where to work was money.

Only about 14% selected ethical culture, 8% picked good training and 5% selected something else. The rest — 72% — said good pay.

"I was expecting good pay to be the most popular answer, but I didn't expect it to be so overwhelmingly the choice," Brown said. "Maybe some of what ties into that is these students may have so many debts to repay when they graduate, they are concerned about paying that back."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.