Anyhow. David Riesman (co-author of "The Lonely Crowd") spoke at Michigan in 1957 or 58. His subject was on whether or not a college education led to a change of values by the students. He and his colleagues had made a special study of this.
The results were interesting. It seemed that this happened only in three colleges in the entire United States: Reed College, St. Johns College, and the University of Chicago (the undergrad college). His thesis (I don't remember the details) was that the reason for this was that students in these three institutions were "isolated" from the world in some way. At Chicago and St. Johns it was the freakish curriculum; at Reed it was hostility between campus and town. It was this isolation or separation from the world that led to the college classes having an impact on the students, leading to the change in values.
At least in the 1950s college wasn't having much impact on how students thought. I don't know to what extent this is relevant to the reading habits of students in that decade.
Carrol