Massaging Higher Education Prospects

College students may not face brighter job prospects after graduation but they feel better about themselves. “Through a recent social media study of Facebook, Twitter, and message board posts and comments regarding New Year’s resolutions, CUnet, a leading provider of performance marketing solutions for the higher education sector, found users to be optimistic toward completing or pursuing higher education goals,” according to PR Newswire. “Using CUnet’s social media analysis tools, the study looked at 1,093 resolutions about higher education that were posted between December 25 and January 8 to gain a better understanding of the attitudes and concerns of students.”

“ Overall, nearly two-thirds of the posts were positive, referencing happiness (27.63%), excitement (3.02%), and “can’t wait” (1.65%) more so than hate (3.39%), sadness (1.01%), nervousness (.55%), or depression (.09%). The negative posts mostly stemmed from issues with work/life balance.CUnet Social Media Analyst Jeff Berg also narrowed down the results to the most popular degree fields, which included:

• “25% in healthcare, a majority of which specified nursing;
• “16.4% in criminal justice, mostly as police officers;
• “14.5% in massage therapy.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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