Ethics, Materialism and Higher Education: The Dilemma between Career and Social Goals

Abstract

This article assesses the ways in which the shifting ethical perspectives of money-orientated learned individuals influence their approach towards family, career and societal bounds. For the purpose of this study, a descriptive study of 100 college students was undertaken at a leading university in north-western India by using self-administered questionnaires with stratified random sampling procedures. A principal component (factor) analysis using varimax rotation and K-means clustering were conducted. The findings indicated that consumption communicative senior poor students and lifestyle communicative young poor students have no materialistic career goals. A high prospect for integrated career and social development is a common expectation, providing the need to assess other variables affecting integrated career and social development. Ethnicity, academic discipline and gender are factors of perspective, incitement and prospects towards ethics, materialism and career and social goals. Social interaction in consumption or lifestyle also has a significant impact on materialistic career goals and integrated career and social development. By increasing communicativeness, the probability of having low materialistic career goals also increases. Materialistic career goals of students substantially influence their integrated career and social development. Social groupings and institutional gatherings may devise new ways to inculcate social and academic ethics among their affiliates. Institutional change in instilling values in staff behaviour can result in positive outcomes and a social lifestyle.