Prior college experience and attitude change during the middle years: a panel study

The relationships of previous college attendance to changes in attitudes later in life were assessed by focusing on the responses of middle-aged men and women to two surveys--one when they were approximately forty years of age, and a second thirteen years later. For both men and women, prior college attendance was associated with acceptance of less traditional conceptions of gender-roles and beliefs about God and lower feelings of anomia at midlife. Moreover, for the men, previous college training was also associated with the amount of change in their attitudes which occurred during the middle years. For women, there was little long range linkage between earlier education and attitude change at midlife.