“I’m the first child to go away to college, so it’s harder on them,” he said.

But not all parents are like Avery’s, said Philip Strong, director of the Neighborhood Concept pilot program at MSU. Rather, some are eager to “snowplow.”

“We have an increasing amount of what I call ‘snowplow’ parents,” Strong said. “We’ve got ‘helicopter parents’ that are there to swoop down as needed and then the ‘snowplow parents’ want to clear every single barrier in their student’s way and we know, because of development, that it’s okay to have barriers to work through.”

Overbearing parents are just one of several factors that have caused a major change in the way college freshmen approach college throughout the past 20 years, said Linda Bips, an assistant professor of psychology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.

In a recent New York Times column, titled “Students Are Different Now,” Bips argued students today are less prepared to live independently than the generation before them.

“In the blog response to the article, people felt I was being critical of students and that’s not the point,” Bips said. “Our society has shifted to a much more protected model of parenting. Some students have not been allowed to make mistakes and struggle with life’s difficulties.”

From micromanaging their freshman’s class schedule to dictating rooming assignments, Strong said he’s just about seen it all.

“We’re seeing a cultural shift where parents are much more actively interested in their children’s lives,” he said. “It’s the soccer mom age where parents are used to being at every practice, every game and every event.”

Avery, a computer science freshman, is for the first time doing his own laundry, hunting down his own dinner and making his own decisions about when it’s time to crack open his Calculus II book.

One thing is for sure: His freshman experience at MSU will be nothing like his father’s. For starters, his parents can get ahold of him just about 24/7 via cell phone.

“My dad went to (Michigan) State and his parents didn’t really do as much as he has for me,” Avery said. “And it’s also different with technology, being able to have that constant contact with your kid at college.”

Parental involvement begins before students even approach college, Bips said.

“I’m amazed at how much parents are involved, writing their (student’s) essays and determining what schools they should apply to,” she said. “It’s insulting and detrimental to their sons and daughters.”

The single greatest challenge MSU freshmen self-report is the new freedom a university schedule allows them, Strong said.

“It’s the freedom to make their own decisions,” he said. “There are no bells ringing for class, no designated time to eat lunch. Some students come in with great experience with that and some come in with mom and dad doing all of that for them.”

Bips said she also has found students to be less independent in the classroom than students of 20 years ago.

“Academically, they’re just as bright,” she said. “They want a lot more coming from faculty in terms of assistance than in the past. The responsibility for an education should be with the student and I see that continuing toward the faculty side.”