On 6 september, at the opening ceremony of the 2026th grade of the university of jordan, the dean of the university of king's league, faced 18,000 new generations, leaving behind the same era of prostration. “..The ai ageWhy go to college?" on the big screen behind him is a novelty study, nearly 80 percent of freshmen have become ai users and almost all have used ai tools。
Address by the guest of the floor at the opening of the 2026 new year's school at the university of jordan
12 septemberShanghai universityIn a study of 5254 new students, the party secretary, u kinyong, gave a seemingly contradictory finding: over 90 per cent of the students chose shanghai out of “self-will” and the top. On the other side, however, the most frequent phrases in the study were “discovery” and “anxiety”。
This “active choice, but lost” state, not just in retrogression and heights, is re-emerging at the opening of universities in the autumn of 2026, turning it into a freshty worthy of scrutiny。
They're an autonomous generation, but there's a strong balance of reality in the choice
As soon as the figure “90% out of self-will” came out, public opinion was divided. Those who agree feel that this post-00 is indeed more compelling, but the opposition is no less so. In the national sample, there is a clear difference between the proportion of new students who actually express the desire to organize university life in full autonomy, which is 60. 7 per cent, and the “90 per cent”。
But even if this will is compromised, the new attitudes towards it are still real. Instead of being blind to the logic of “holy school rings” or “good people say”, they have put the development resources and personal alternatives of going to cities at the top of the top priority of school selection decisions。
The 2026 survey of the institute of secure evictions gave a mutually attested figure: 82. 5 per cent of the interviewed graduates locked their preferred cities into the cities where the university is located. The choice of universities is becoming the life radius of cities and futures. The city that the freshman fills in on the voluntary form is often the starting point for them to predict that they will stay to work, rent a house or even buy a first house。
This pragmatic approach, which binds the choice to the depth of its own development path, coincides with the positioning of the “youth development city” that is accelerating construction in shanghai, creating a closed circle that is highly compatible。
The word "discovery" is a high frequency, but it's not a short-lived emotion
If “autonomous choice” is a common feature of this nascent dimension of action, “discovery” is the common background of their psychological dimension. And that's not what shanghai university found. According to a 2026 survey of 1,334 freshmen in the country, 53. 8 per cent of new students are most concerned about the discomfort and incompetence of the land and water, and 51. 2 per cent are afraid of having problems with their roommates and classmates and not being able to integrate into the community。
New entrants to school face the three main pressures of geographic migration, self-care, and identity reconstruction。
Looking further away, there is a deeper age dilemma behind this confusion. Just the same week as the shanghai university spoke, the topic “53. 3 per cent of the young people interviewed feel they are suffering from speech loss” is being fermented。
The fragmentation of information, the panic of ai alternative thinking, and the sudden loss of a sense of purpose after leaving the standardized examination track combined to make the anxiety of the new generation no longer a temporary discomfort in the first month of school, but a whole identity transition period from the moment of high school graduation。
In his speech, u yong yong directly lit this point: “agent intelligence is accelerating, information is increasing in scale and fragmentation, and confusion and anxiety become normal psychological conditions when people face diverse choices.” this is not a sudden emotional swing, but rather a concentration of the cognitive pressures faced by young people in the ai era at the university threshold。
From emotional resonance to management reality, the direction of such topics is already predetermined
Unlike the impression that “high school speech is a brief emotional resonance”, the repertoire of similar events over the past five years shows that after harvesting the first wave, the hotspots of nascent psychological research have almost all turned to landing surveillance of specific management measures. Even in 2025, according to incomplete statistics, there were at least 50 undergraduate and higher vocational institutions holding parent meetings on or offline。
New parents' conference and information conference at the university level are on the spot
The central point of information for shanghai university this time was “90% autonomy” plus “general confusion”, which is naturally highly sensitive to public opinion. 57. 14 per cent of university students interviewed were clearly opposed to parent groups。
In the light of the previous trajectory, after shanghai university’s acclaimed speech, the public discussion rate will probably no longer remain in the debate as to whether “new generations are really autonomous” and “deep or not.”。
It would move forward to a more specific question: since the school had publicly acknowledged the anxiety of the newborn at the opening of the school, what kind of system of flexibility of choice, support for academic planning and psychological counselling would then really be taken up
If the follow-up policy is not kept up in time, this statement at the opening ceremony will turn into a negative case in which “doing nothing together” is questioned in the next round of events。
Thematic poster presentation for youth groups
