George Mason University’s students may be gloomier than most — but it’s apparently not from studying too hard.
The student body ranks as one of the least happy and least studious among what Princeton Review calls the top 361 schools in the nation, according to a report released this week by the publication. The annual ranking also characterized GMU as the second most diverse among the colleges and universities reviewed.
Princeton Review put the school at 14th in “least happy students” category and 13th in the “students (almost) never study” ranking. GMU placed 16th for “students dissatisfied with financial aid.”
GMU spokesman Dan Walsch said many of the 31,000 students at Mason are married and have jobs on top of taking classes. The population also is largely commuters, with only about 6,000 students living on campus.
“They are just very busy in their lives,” he said.
As a contradiction to the Princeton Review findings, he pointed to an in-house survey that found 90 percent of students described themselves in 2005 as “very satisfied/satisfied” with their overall college experience.
“We want our students to have as good an experience at Mason as we can possibly give them,” Walsch said. “We also want them to get as much out of their educational experience as they can, meaning they put as much effort and time as their teachers put in.”
