We all know the stories. We've all seen the weddings on campus and the couples on the sidewalk holding hands, usually blocking foot traffic, but that's a whole different issue. We all know the reasons people give when they tell you that you need to find the love of your life in college: "Miami sends Valentine's day cards to the Merger's!'' and "Miami is so beautiful, you just have to fall in love!" I think that it's true for most colleges, not just Miami, that there is this definite feeling that you need to fall in love while you're there. After all, where else are you going to find someone? Work? Office romances rarely work out and when real life begins, how will you even find the time to date? And then of course you have the people who seem to be in college solely to find a Merger. These are your folks looking to get their MRS degree or their diamond diploma. They somehow make it seem like that's the only worthwhile part of college.
Why is it that there is so much pressure to meet your soul mate in college, in a country whose average age of marriage according the United States Census Bureau is 26 for a woman and 28 for a man? The average age of a college graduate is 21, so it seems hard to imagine that everyone is really getting married right after college, even though it can feel that way. Once one friend gets engaged it's like dominos and soon you might feel like you are the only one not booking a venue and shopping for dresses. It is tempting to feel like you as a person are the reason for this. However, this is likely not the case. It is actually statistically unlikely to marry immediately after getting your undergraduate degree. In fact, you might be surprised at to hear that one possible reason you aren't off cake testing could be your degree aspiration.
According to a study by the Journal of Marriage and Family, academic aspiration is actually closely related to marriage during or closely following college, particularly among women. Women who aspire only to an associate's degree and men who don't plan to get more than a baccalaureate are more likely to marry than their peers who want to attend graduate school or professional school. The single most reliable factor for predicting if a woman was single at the end of her years as an undergraduate was whether or not she stated she wanted a master's degree or professional degree as a freshman.
So what does this mean for Miami University students? Mostly it just means they need to stop beating themselves up if they aren't walking around with an engagement ring. Don't let yourself be convinced that the few who are getting married are representative of the whole, because that just isn't true.
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