Becky Bailey, a junior SMU student, logged onto Facebook and scanned her Newsfeed, skimming the page for anything interesting. To her surprise, the relationship status of one of her old high school friends had changed; eager to see the details, she clicked on his name to read the latest news. Only a moment later did she realize the very important detail she had glossed over in her haste to get the details.

“Oh my God!” she gasped. “He’s engaged!”

Bailey says that this is not the first high school friend that has recently become engaged. In fact, she thinks it might be a trend to get engaged in high school, since this is her sixth friend to do so. Professor Adrian Tan, Ph.D., a lecturer of sociology at SMU, offers a counter explanation for the recent spike of engagements that Bailey sees.

“On a national level, what we are seeing are isolated incidents,” wrote Tan in an e-mail interview. “People are getting married much later than before. The emphasis on education and career building are major explanations.”

But even some SMU students say they see a trend. At least a dozen students claim to have at least one friend that recently got engaged or is even engaged themselves. And many of them have more than one friend who is engaged or married.

Auburn Layman, a junior English major at SMU and copy editor for The Daily Campus, is already planning on getting married once she graduates. She has been dating her boyfriend for over two years and, by the time she graduates, will have known him for four years. She, like many, believes that marriage cannot be rushed into; it must be built upon a strong base first.

“We truly do know each other, both the good sides and the bad sides, and have formed a strong foundation of friendship on which our relationship is based,” said Layman. “A marriage is, and always will be, hard work. We recognize that and are more than willing to embrace the challenge together.”

Layman comes from a family of early marriages. Her parents were married at the ages of 18 and 19, and her sister got married at 20. So, relative to the rest of her family, she is getting married later in life. However, she acknowledges that the timing for getting married is different for everyone, and that sometimes, there just is not a perfect time.

“It seems like there is no good time to get married, timing-wise at least,” said Layman. “After graduation will be the most open time in my life: I won’t have the demands and constraints of a job, nor will my friends have moved across the country yet, which I consider an underrated advantage.”

Even countries in Asia, and especially in China, have reported an increase in younger people getting married. According to the Civil Affairs Department of the Xuhui District, Shanghai, about 1,221 university graduates applied for marriage registration last year, an increase of 50 percent since 2005. But Tan knows that with early marriages come various obstacles, even in foreign countries.

“People who marry early tend to suffer financially, as their economic base is not established,” wrote Tan. “Those with a stronger economic base will do better. Contrary to conventional wisdom, money can make or break a family.”

Still, college students continue to get engaged and married at young ages. Lindi Farris Hill is an example of such a college student. Hill was a 2007 SMU graduate and got engaged in the fall of 2006, when her boyfriend at the time proposed to her on stage at Pigskin Revue. She says that marriage has changed her, but for the better.

“My life had already been changing since my freshman year,” said Hill. “Marriage changes you because you exit the college scene all together. You start thinking about living together, about your finances and about growing up in general.”

Because Hill never fit into the party scene at SMU, she says that exiting the college life was not very difficult for her at all. But, she admits that for those that enter college ready to party, getting engaged could affect them negatively. Hill had always been very academically oriented and getting engaged actually helped her with her studies.

“You start to take your studies more seriously,” said Hill. “To me, once you get married, the finances are on you. You have to learn to budget and how to live off a salary. How can you do all that without properly studying and getting prepared?”

When asked if she believed there was a trend of people getting engaged at younger ages, Hill was of conflicting minds.

“When I first started college, I don’t remember a lot of people getting engaged,” said Hill. “But I remember a lot of girls getting engaged around the same time I did. I personally never intended to get married this young. To me, it was always ‘if it happens, it happens,’ but I never planned on it.”

However, Hill says that it is regrettable to see people getting engaged and married at younger ages for wrong reasons. Since graduating college, she has heard and seen all sorts of engagements and marriages for all kinds of reasons and some of them really make no sense.

“I’ve met people, mainly girls, that are in love with the idea of getting married itself,” said Hill. “Ever since they were little, they had their entire wedding already planned out, from the dress, to the location and even the cake. All they need is the guy. And they get to college, they’ll meet a guy, date him for a while and then think that they are finally getting their chance to have their big wedding.”

Hill recalled a reason that she heard back when she had just recently gotten engaged. She says that some couples had been dating for a long time so they get it into their heads that they either had to break up or get married. Hill believes that people should wait until they graduate to get married, such as she did.

“The more you wait, the less inhibiting factors there will be. And also, I think that the more secure you can be on your own, the easier it becomes to be more stable. I don’t think people should get married before graduation.”

When asked what the biggest difference between being single and being married was, Hill smiled.

“The biggest difference to me is not having to say ‘goodbye’ at the end of the night.”