Just because Time Incorporated has to cut 6% of their workforce (roughly 600 employees) this Christmas season, and every trade daily is plastered with the heralding of the company's cuts as a synecdoche for the demise of the entire paper industry, doesn't mean that there isn't some silver lining to be found in the grey cloudy skies.

For example: Time magazine is now the number one rated magazine among college students, bumping Cosmo down to second place. No wonder Ann Moore is being recognized with national accolades for firing chunks of staff, while George Hearst is languishing in obscurity somewhere under his pile of billions as CosmoGIRL! fell by the wayside.

Or maybe the answer for the recent boom of college students subscribing to high-minded periodicals can be found elsewhere than just brand favoritism:

Certainly in a presidential-election year, the popularity of a news magazine and website seems to make sense. But overall, the tone of the survey seemed a lot weightier than in years past. There were other changes, such as the inclusion of world peace as the No. 4 answer to the question "I wish …" (The more-realistic tangibles of money, doing better in school and a job, however, still beat out peace.)

But before you conclude that the Obama effect has led college students to become more high-minded than ever, consider this: The fondest wish of some 7.2% of respondents (and the No. 6 response, two slots below world peace) was the ability to fly.

No guys, it's cool. Undergraduates are still the worst. It's just that everyone gets their news online now, so the only reason to be a college student buying Time magazine is to splay out on your milk crate/coffee table to impress the girl from your Poli-Lit class you've taken home on Friday.