The number of Americans aged 18 to 24 rose from 16.5 million in 1960 to 24.7 million in 1970, a jump of almost 50 percent. By then approximately one-third of this age group (or 7.9 million) was studying at least part-time at institutions of higher education. The explosive leap in the numbers of college-educated young people, one of the most salient demographic trends of the decade, promoted increasing amounts of talk by the mid-1960s about "youth culture," "youth rebellion," and "generation gap."
