Survey: For students happiness overrules money

A recent survey revealed that today's high school and university students would rather be happy and have a loving family and friends instead of being rich.

The Studentawards Canada 2020 survey asked 2,5000 students about their current beliefs (2010) and then about their future beliefs (2020) on their values, life priorities, social issues, employment, technology and the media. The answers that were given found that on a whole Canadian students are very traditional when it comes to their needs in the future. The top personal values for those in the survey are passion, determination, integrity, optimism and compassion. Seventy per cent of the students are optimistic and believe that they will create their own destiny. The environment is an issue but not the top priority of young people. The group set their lowest priorities as taking care of the environment, having money and material things and trying as many new things as possible. Starting a new business was not in the scope for 6 in 10 and only 1 in 4 would consider becoming an entrepreneur. Sixty percent agree that their set of values and beliefs are very different from their parent's generation. Two-thirds of the students believe that their home is where their friends are and over half believe that their home is their castle. "The survey results show the group to be idealistic and optimistic and confident in their abilities to accomplish goals, but the majority of students are not entrepreneurs and don't believe they will be millionaires," says Suzanne Tyson, President, Studentawards Inc. in a press release. "We found these students are looking for happiness in life, not financial riches, because they place low importance on values such as collaboration, innovation and leadership, and high importance on compassion, integrity and optimism."