One of the significant things about Jewish culture in the older teen years is that it is largely college oriented. Sixty five per cent of the Jewish teen-agers of college age attend institutions of higher learning. This is substantially higher than the figures for the American population at large -- 45.6 per cent for males and 29.2 per cent for females. This may help explain a phenomenon described by a small town Jewish boy. In their first two years in high school, Jewish boys in this town make strenuous exertions to win positions on the school teams. However, in their junior and senior years, they generally forego their athletic pursuits, presumably in the interest of better academic achievement. It is significant, too, that the older teen-agers I interviewed believed, unlike the younger ones, that Jewish students tend to do better academically than their gentile counterparts.

The percentage of Jewish girls who attend college is almost as high as that of boys. The motivations for both sexes, to be sure, are different. The vocational motive is the dominant one for boys, while Jewish girls attend college for social reasons and to become culturally developed. One of the significant developments in American Jewish life is that the cultural consumers are largely the women. It is they who read -- and make -- Jewish best-sellers and then persuade their husbands to read them.