Either glasses or contacts. 61% of the population wear corrective lenses so it must be higher in college. A lot of people wear contacts so it may not seem that way.
I am not sure if it is a myth or not but I heard that after a few years in college you start wearing glasses even if you did not wear glasses when you first started college, but since there is so much computer use and reading and studying your vision gets worse. Is this true?
I can’t say much about vision going bad, but I can say that first bit is reasonably true. What happens is that many dorm bedrooms don’t have a sink/proper mirror to properly dispose/insert your lens solution so you have to go to the bathroom (which may not be nearby) to clean up. If you’re running late for class or fall asleep at your desk or something, then you don’t want to deal with the hassle of lenses. I wore my corrective lenses in college all the time (tbh I lost my glasses a long time ago and never got them replaced), but my roommate usually wore her glasses. Knew a fair number of people who did the same thing she did.
As for the myth about your eyes getting worse, yes, college myopia is a thing, more because of reading than anything else. What actually happens is that the flexible lens in your eye stiffens if it is in a certain position for long periods of time, making its relaxed position (which is for distance vision) focus differently, leading to poor distance vision. There are also genetics involved. Also, college students who wear glasses or contacts rarely remove same for close work, which makes their eyes over focus for close work, leading to greater deterioration.
I have no quantitative data on whether college students have a higher rate of corrective lens use than the general population, but I would guess they do. But I started wearing glasses when I was ten, so it’s not really an issue for me 
The looking at screens and stuff can be easily remedied by looking away from the screen every once in a while. Getting up, looking around at things, etc. Just sayin’
You’re assuming that the general population has the same corrective issues as college students. There are not many college students who are over 40.
Why is this relevant? Are you planning on funding lenses for classmates?
I guess so. I for one do.
It probably depends on the college too.
You would expect less people to wear contacts somewhere like Penn State compared to a nerdier school like UChicago or Tufts.
On a side note, how do those who wear contacts manage in the morning when you’re running late? The bathrooms in my university are pretty small so I can’t expect them to always be vacant.
Do hand wipes in the dorm help?
@ayprcwbjmy I wonder if there is actually a correlation between glasses vs contacts and nerdiness, at least nowadays. Glasses seem to be in (at least fashionable ones) and all sorts of people need glasses. I’d be really interested to see a study on that haha
I can probably count on my hand the number of people I know who don’t have corrective lenses of some sort. I don’t know anyone that began to need them in college though- most started much younger.
@ayprcwbjmy about using contacts, I use hand wipes if I am in my room, but often I bring my contacts to the bathroom and use a sink. There is no need for the bathroom to be vacant, you just need a sink and a little counter space. But if I am running super late, I just wear my glasses.
@Crimsonstained7 you would first need a quantifiable measure of nerdiness.
Oh I forgot, not being nerdy magically improves your vision??? It’s a medical problem. If anything, I’d expect more contacts than glasses at Penn State (though you can’t really stereotype 40k students’ vision problems), but I highly doubt we have a different rate of 20/20 people than other schools.
Even in the 1980s, many of us were going to disposable one-day lenses and lenses you could wear overnight.
There is a trope that says reading a lot makes you nearsighted, but only one of my kids wear glasses and all are readers.
GoatGirl19 Self defined is probably fine. Or maybe just base it on intelligence, which is hard to measure as well so…
My kid took her contacts and her glasses to her school three years ago; she wears her glasses in class, and I haven’t had to refill the contacts for a while. She says her glasses are faster and easier to deal with in the morning.
I’m a bit confused by the point of this thread? People wear glasses and contacts, some get worse or lazier over time, others don’t, and lots of people have vision problems, and they will not be more or less common at different schools. Nerdiness and vision are not connected by much if anything. Is there a particular place the thread is leading OP?