First, we fretted incessantly about developmental milestones, then about preschool academics before moving on to kindergarten readiness. Later, during the dozen years that followed our children's entry into big-kid classrooms, we plotted and prodded and pushed to position our promising young adults for the Holy Grail of higher education.

This, we believed, was the ticket to their economic success. A college diploma guaranteed a comfortable foothold in the American Dream.

Now some of our children have graduated into the worst economy their generation has known, and what should be a time of celebration has morphed into a bout of full-blown anxiety. Will they land a job? Will it pay enough to support them? How long before I can cut the cord?

All these job worries remind me of a refrain from my childhood, one that my parents repeated so often that it rang with both promise and premonition. La calle esta dura, mi'ja. Indeed, the streets were hard for people who had gone into exile penniless.

Though I don't have a college graduate this year, I find it impossible to escape the obsessive chatter of relatives, neighbors and friends. Everyone tells a tale of assumptions turned on their heads, of dreams dashed or waylaid. The factors that once assured a good-paying job have run smack into the reality of a recession.

In a downturn that has seen the nation lose more than 5.7 million jobs since December 2007, economic majors are learning about the economy the hard way -- as waiters. English lit grads are speaking retail language at Nordstrom, and young journalists are . . . well, let's not even go there.

And those are the lucky ones. For every friend's child who has managed to secure a job, any job, another two are slinking back to the bedrooms they left four years earlier. They likely will spend weeks, maybe months, networking, posting resumes and, if fate smiles on them, eventually making the interview rounds. Those boom-boom years of picking from among several offers and pocketing signing bonuses have faded into a past that seems as surreal as flipping downtown Miami condos for profit.

Observing this phenomenon, market-watchers say The Great Recession has changed our psyche -- and habits -- in ways that will last decades.

Not a bad thing, frankly, because entitlement had become a way of life and many, my own children included, were living the notion that good times were like diamonds: forever.

A just-released Associated Press-mtvU poll confirms that students are getting an unexpected education, one that had been postponed too long.

The survey of students at 40 U.S. colleges painted a picture of college kids stressed out by school and relationships, but also by, unusual for their generation, money, employment prospects and their own parents' financial stability. Fully one-third worried about their parents' finances; job loss in the family also made twice as many students consider dropping out.

Of course, there's an ugly underside to stress and worry and I don't mean to belittle that in any way.

Some students complained of trouble sleeping and of feeling hopeless. Nobody can possibly wish that kind of mental hardship on someone.

Nevertheless, for the slightly anxious but otherwise healthy majority, a touch of apprehension and a dash of concern might prove to be great motivators. Hard streets and no guarantees are timeless lessons from the School of Hard Knocks. No diploma needed.

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