The Beatles had a hit on college campuses with a song that began: “The best things in life are free, but you can keep them for the birds and bees. Now give me money. That’s what I want.”

That was more than 40 years ago, but those words ring especially true to college students today, according to a national survey of student attitudes.

A record-low percentage of college freshmen said it was very important or essential to “develop a meaningful philosophy of life.” Meanwhile, interest in being “very well-off financially” was at the highest level in 13 years.

Those findings appear in the American Freshman Survey, an annual study being released today by the University of California in Los Angeles. The survey, which has been conducted for 38 years, is the longest-running assessment of student attitudes and plans.

This year’s study surveyed 267,449 students at 413 colleges and universities, and was statistically adjusted to reflect the 1.2 million full-time freshmen in 2003.

Slightly less than 40 percent of current college freshmen said it was important to develop a meaningful philosophy. The absence of introspection is a far cry from the peak year of 1967, when 86 percent of freshmen said it was important to find a meaningful life philosophy.

Linda Sax, a UCLA education professor who is director of the survey, said the finding reflected a long-standing tension “between material rewards and the value of education” among students, which has intensified in recent years.

“There’s increasing pressure to get in” to college, she said, because many schools accept a smaller percentage of applicants each year. Students also are increasingly “preoccupied with prestige and rankings of colleges,” making them more concerned with where they are going to school rather than “why they are going,” Sax said.

Grade inflation

Other noteworthy findings in this year’s survey:

Students earning A averages hit a high of 47 percent, compared with 18 percent in 1968. That apparent grade inflation “shows that as the A average becomes the norm, the C grade is becoming a thing of the past,” said Alexander Astin, the UCLA education professor who founded the survey.

Interest in politics is rising, with one-third of students saying it is important to keep up to date with political affairs. The figure has been going up since 2000 but is still far lower than the 60 percent of students interested in keeping up with politics in 1966.

Partying at low

Drinking, smoking and partying hit record low rates, continuing a decade of decline. For example, only about 45 percent of freshmen said they drank beer frequently or occasionally, compared with a peak of 74 percent in 1982.

Only about 24 percent said they attended parties six hours or more a week, down from 37 percent in 1987.