Today, many UCLA undergraduate students are coming back from their spring break.
Few, however, are coming back from a honeymoon.
Irina Capuano, a third-year psychology and Russian studies student, is one of those few. She is returning to class in Westwood this week after a honeymoon in Jamaica with her husband Gregory Capuano, a 2005 graduate of Ithaca College in New York.
The two – who were engaged since August 2005 – were married March 4 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
In order to make it happen, Irina Capuano said she squeezed wedding dress fittings, cake tastings and appointments with the florist in between classes, study sessions and other work during January and February.
Capuano’s winter quarter was not a typical one for most college juniors, at UCLA or elsewhere: Less than 15 percent of students across the country get married while in college, according to Norval Glenn, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
And past studies have suggested that academically and professionally ambitious adults – especially women – often get sidetracked by their goals and are thus less likely to get married at all.
In China, it was illegal for college students to get married until 2005.
But marriage sociologists are now asserting the opposite.
Studies over the last two decades show that college-educated men and women are marrying at higher rates than those who are not college-educated, though most still marry after they have graduated.
Glenn said this trend, which has built up over the last two decades and is continuing, is happening in part because traits that adults want to see in their future spouses are changing.
This is especially true for men who, 25 years ago, were not as interested in seeking educated women.
“College-educated women once were not as likely to be married, but for women now it’s been a big turn-around,” Glenn said. “Now college-educated women are very likely to eventually get married.”
Steve Mintz, co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families and a sociology professor at the University of Houston, said it is also very likely that college-educated adults marry each other because they feel they have more in common.
Mintz said research shows that college-educated couples also stay married longer than those who are not.
“In a world where half the marriages end in divorce, people aren’t just marrying for the moment anymore,” Mintz said. “They’re trying to determine how it will sustain. Whether you’re likely to grow together has grown more important.”
He added that the timing of marriage is most often determined by when adults enter the job market. Because more people are attending college before they begin professional careers, the average age at which they marry has increased over the years. The average age for women is 25 and a half, and 27 for men.
Crystal Aspiras, a third-year psychobiology and art history student, and her boyfriend Jun Mendoza, may end up fitting the description of the contemporary couple.
Aspiras said she believes her five-year relationship with Mendoza will end in marriage, but she is not yet ready for engagement, much less marriage.
Before marriage, Aspiras said she intends to concentrate on getting through dental school and her boyfriend plans to attend medical school.
She said engagement is also too much for her right now.
“Just having the title of being engaged – it just shocks other people, even though it wouldn’t change my relationship at all,” Aspiras said.
Capuano, who still plans on going to law school, said she did not expect to marry young. She said she laughed when her sister got married young, believing that marriage should come after education and a career.
“If you would have told me while I was partying as a freshman ... that this would happen to me by my junior year, I would have never believed you,” Capuano said. “But it felt right. If you find the right person and it works, you don’t want to let that go at any age.”
So far, she said she has nothing bad to say about being engaged or married while in college.
“Academically, I did just as well,” she said. “I’d always had good grades and continued to get them, but I think I did better learning-wise because I saw a bigger picture.”
Glenn said his research supports Capuano’s experiences.
“People that are married actually tend to do better in school,” Glenn said.
But Capuano said she does not recommend planning a wedding while in school, adding that the only reason she and her husband got married early in March instead of the planned time of August was because they won a $102,000 wedding prize from a radio show.
Alexa Vaughn
