Colleges and universities across the country are under extreme pressure, financially and politically. Their students are feeling stressed out, too.<\/p>\n
Students are juggling not just homework, but often jobs and families. Artificial intelligence is changing how they study and how they are taught. Seniors worry about being sent into an uncertain world after graduation. On top of everything else, students fret about the political turmoil swirling around them. And some are lonely.<\/p>\n
The New York Times traveled to campuses around the country and spoke in phone interviews with over 60 students, including undergraduates and graduate students. At community colleges, public universities and private colleges, students talked about how changes happening in higher education and in society more broadly are affecting them.<\/p>\n
Many said there\u2019s a lot to love about college: kindhearted professors and new friends, having access to health care, the thrill of learning every day. Most said they had no doubt their degree would be worth the cost of tuition.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what is on their minds:<\/p>\n
Affording tuition and everything else<\/p>\n
A four-year degree can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, a giant financial investment. Some elite universities have recently advertised beefed up financial aid. The Trump administration is demanding that schools freeze their tuition.<\/p>\n
But tuition is only a piece of the affordability puzzle for students. Housing, everyday necessities and the cost of caring for children also weigh on many.<\/p>\n
Mr. Martin, a radiology student at Valencia, a community college in Orlando, Fla., said college is expensive and difficult. \u201cI have a baby right now,\u201d he said, \u201cand it\u2019s hard to balance family life with how much you have to study for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ameera John, 20, saves money by living with her mother in Brooklyn, but her commute to LaGuardia Community College, in Queens, takes an hour. Sometimes she is late and professors aren\u2019t always sympathetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to do my best,\u201d Ms. John said. \u201cIt\u2019s really stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabby Smith, 20, studies music at Rollins College, a private liberal arts school in Winter Park, Fla. On top of her coursework, Ms. Smith has an unpaid internship at a recording studio. Right now, she said, \u201cthe biggest challenge is definitely financial\u201d and finding time to juggle everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the time, I just go to class, I do my homework and I go right back home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Making friends<\/p>\n
Some students said they expected college to be fun and social, the way it is in movies or on social media. But Tina Zhang, 19, a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said college is not how many of her peers had pictured it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this kind of influences people to view college as somewhere where you can really thrive, maybe just go to parties and have a lot of fun, great social life,\u201d she said. \u201cAt M.I.T., the reality is that most of the time you\u2019re probably doing your problem sets or studying for exams.\u201d<\/p>\n
That reality can be isolating, particularly for students who do not live in dorms or who don\u2019t fit the mold of traditional undergraduates.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnline at least, there\u2019s a lot of hype and then you see a lot of the fun things about college,\u201d said Ms. Paray, a first-year mechanical engineering student at U.C.F., a large public university. But, she added, \u201cfor a lot of people, you have trouble finding your group of people and getting out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kathy Hall, 57, is an occupational therapist studying nursing at Los Medanos College, a community college in Pittsburg, Calif. She\u2019s older than most of her classmates and hasn\u2019t found it easy to make friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re in a totally different stage of their life,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cFeeling like I fit in hasn\u2019t been easy, but it\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
While classmates might have once organized a study group or met up in the library, Ms. Hall said, some now turn to artificial intelligence tools to help them prepare for exams.<\/p>\n
Amelia Hawkins, 22, a fifth-year student pursuing a master\u2019s degree in environmental engineering at Stanford University in California, said A.I. might make life easier, but it is also \u201csort of antithetical to the idea of community and collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting a job<\/p>\n
Students say they are filled with anxiety about the job market that awaits them. For those hoping to enter science, technology and engineering fields, federal cuts to research funding have added more uncertainty to a labor landscape unsettled by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Amelia Hawkins, 22, felt as if she had \u201cwon the lottery\u201d when she was admitted to Stanford University in California. But as she prepares to graduate, her job prospects feel precarious. She hears horror stories about desperate, fruitless job searches in fields like computer science that were once rich in opportunities<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI am kind of beginning my job search right now, and it\u2019s just so overwhelming,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels really volatile, especially for the environmental field. What if I don\u2019t get a job? What am I going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n Aiden Dennis, 18, studies aerospace engineering at the University of Central Florida. His twin brother works in trade and sometimes teases him about \u201cwasting all that time at college,\u201d Mr. Dennis said.<\/p>\n