It was spring 1995, and four Bentley College roommates had plastered the walls of their Waltham apartment with more job offers than rejection letters. The economy was growing, and stocks were on the rise. The guys were feeling good, the way college graduates could back then, confident that they would make it big in business. By 2001, Craig Berlinski and C.C. Chapman were earning more than their parents combined, and their college roommates Jim Spoto and Greg Maynard had made tens of thousands of dollars in the stock market. Like many in their generation, the four roommates believed in an ever-expanding economy and an unstoppable stock market. But now, Berlinski keeps extra money in savings accounts and refuses to look at his retirement fund. Maynard and Spoto have watched their investments drop more than 50 percent. And most of Chapman's savings were wiped out when he carried two mortgages because he couldn't sell his house after buying a new one. Their first decade out of the school will be remembered not for its unprecedented boom, but for the striking string of bubbles that have burst: technology, housing, stocks. This recession's stunning job losses, plunging home values, and plummeting portfolios have turned 30-somethings uncharacteristically cautious. It's a sweeping shift in psychology for a group that is entering its prime earning and spending years - one that could turn them into a generation of savers and have a lasting effect on the economy. "If I didn't have the memories of the good times, it wouldn't be so hard to accept now," said Berlinski, 36, who described the high life working at EMC between 1997 and 2004. He traveled the world, ate out most nights, grew his brokerage account to $50,000, and watched the Hopkinton tech company's stock break $100. (Today it's at about $10.) "But it was fiction. And it has changed my mind and my approach." Thirty-somethings have been hit particularly hard by the current financial crisis, which last week sent the Dow Jones industrials average to its lowest level since 1997. Blame it on bad timing. They often bought homes and stocks at or near their peaks and now face the steepest losses. Indeed, over the past decade, this group has seen a greater accumulation and loss of wealth than any other age cohort, according to financial analysts. In 2007, households headed by someone under age 35 had an average household net worth of about $106,000, said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan who recently detailed the trend in a report titled "The Young and the Leveraged." That sum plunged 28 percent to $76,000 by the end of 2008, the largest drop among all age groups. Meanwhile, the percentage of 30-somethings taking hardship withdrawals from their retirement plans jumped to 2.6 percent at the end of last year from 0.9 percent in 2000, according to Fidelity Investments.

"The investing experience over the past 10 years has totally skewed their view of the way markets typically work. It's definitely going to change the way this group does longer-term investing," said Sharon Rich, a financial planner in Belmont. "You saw after the Depression that the mentality of conservative investing - leaving it under the mattress or in the bank - lasted a generation." Such an attitude could stunt the economic recovery. That's because this age group is entering a period normally characterized by sustained spending, whether it's starting a family, buying a bigger home, or getting another car. Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight, said many 30-somethings could be reluctant to return to stock investments after their harsh realization that what goes way up can come crashing down quickly. A new fiscal prudence and increased savings will ultimately help the economy in the long term, he added, but reduce the size or scope of future booms. "They've learned some lessons fairly early on that other generations haven't had to learn because we haven't seen market moves like this since the 1930s," Gault said. These days, Berlinksi, a staffing manager at Veritude, a temporary staffing firm, is feeling insecure. His brokerage account has shed half of its value, falling to about $25,000. Job loss is on his mind. Last year, Berlinski's $50,000 home equity line was slashed to $25,000. He can't refinance because the Framingham home he bought for $295,000 in 2001 is now worth about $265,000. So projects like a new deck and driveway are on hold. "It's all been so jolting," said Berlinski, who majored in business communications. Chapman, too, is feeling the brunt of the housing bust. At the start of the decade, Chapman, who studied computer information systems, had saved more than $25,000 in retirement funds working in information technology. But he drained that account in 2003 to buy a small home in Milford for $250,000. At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer. Chapman and his wife figured they could live there comfortably for five years, and, given the way housing prices were soaring around them, make a profit when they wanted to upgrade. In summer 2007, they fell in love with a new, larger home and signed the mortgage without selling their first house. They put the old home up for $265,000. And then they waited in agony, lowering the price for nine months while paying both mortgages, until someone was willing to buy it for $220,000 last April. "It was hell," said Chapman, who has two children. "Paying two mortgages is not easy, and it drained whatever savings we had." Today, his retirement fund is pretty barren; he hasn't made a contribution since starting a digital marketing firm in 2007. Any extra money these days is in a cash account, including flexible CDs that don't charge withdrawal fees, a choice spurred by the hard lessons the 35-year-old has learned.