Student well-being: Are they better off now?

Past and present well-being of university students from Canada and the United States are compared. Ratings for the domains of health, recreation, self-esteem, and education decreased significantly between the 1984 measures and the 1992 measures. Canadian students generally rated the domains lower than did students from the United States. Self-discrepancy measures tended to decrease and hope measures for the United States students indicated less hopefulness now than in 1984. In general, student perceptions of well-being seem poorer now than in the past.A path analysis revealed that MDT predicted 39 percent of the variance for satisfaction and 45 percent for happiness. Empirical support is provided for most of the hypothesized paths and for self esteem and social support as conditioners of well-being. The results are consistent with cultural convergence and theories of well-being that incorporate both actual world changes and individual perception of those changes.