Research shows that people's personalities don't change much even after they go to college
One might assume that a change in social status, such as going to college, would lead to a change in personality, but research on young people who went to college and those who didn't shows that going to college has little effect on core personality traits.
Social Class and Personality: The Effects of Educational Mobility on Personality Trait Change - Anatolia Batruch, Manon A. van Scheppingen, 2025
Personality stays mostly the same after moving up in social class, new study suggests
https://www.psypost.org/personality-stays-mostly-the-same-after-moving-up-in-social-class-new-study-suggests/
Previous research has shown that people's personalities tend to change in early adulthood, becoming more conscientious, emotionally stable, and agreeable. One theory behind these changes is that people are adapting to new life roles that come with getting a job, getting into a romantic relationship, or going to college, but the details are not well understood.
Anatolia Batruch, a psychologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and her team used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel , a longitudinal study conducted in Germany, to investigate the effect of entering a new social class at university on personality.
The data included a group of 4,776 people who were followed from adolescence through their 30s. The research team focused on young adults whose parents did not go to college, comparing the effects of going to college between those who did and those who did not.
In this study, the researchers analyzed the Big Five personality traits ( openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness , and neuroticism), locus of control (the degree to which people believe they have influence over their life outcomes), and risk-taking tendencies. These traits have been linked to life outcomes such as health, career success, and happiness.
The analysis found that personality traits developed similarly over time in both the college-going and non-going groups. Conscientiousness in particular improved in both groups, which is consistent with other research showing that people tend to become more responsible and organized in adulthood. However, traits such as extraversion, openness, and neuroticism did not change significantly in either group.
'We were surprised to find that overall personality barely changed,' said Batruch. 'Given that there is a link between social class and personality, what happens when social class changes? Perhaps the changes occur over a longer period of time, or through more subtle mechanisms than we would have expected.'
The most notable difference between those who went to college and those who didn't was in risk-taking tendencies. Compared to those who didn't, those who went to college showed a small but steady decline in risk-taking over time, with the difference becoming statistically significant about 10 years after going to college. This trend was also seen in people whose parents both attended college, with all college-educated people becoming more risk-averse as they got older.
These findings suggest that attending college affects specific areas, such as risk-taking, rather than broad personality traits. One possible explanation is that the college environment itself tends to emphasize planning, caution, and long-term thinking, which may reduce risk-taking.
The team also found that young people who were more risk averse at age 17 before going to college were more likely to go to college in the first place, but even after accounting for these pre-existing differences, college-goers remained more risk averse.
'Being the first in your family to attend college may be intimidating, but it doesn't seem to change your core personality traits,' Batruch said. 'In other words, educational mobility may reshape your opportunities and perspectives without changing who you are.'
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