Abstract: Given that college students life purposes could reflect their moral orientation. This paper aims to conduct a comparative study on the moral orientation and impact factors of life purpose between Chinese and American college students. A total of 379 college students were randomly selected and “Rank 1 Purpose” Survey taken from “Stanford Youth Purpose” Survey was administered in this study， whose data was analyzed with ANOVA. The results showed that a certain number of Chinese and American students possessed an altruistic life purpose. The moral orientation of Chinese students life purpose was significantly influenced by gender and source of origin， with male students and students from rural areas likely to have altruistic life purposes. However， the moral orientation of American students life purpose was not affected by their demographic background of this paper selected.

Key words: China, America, college student, life purpose, moral orientation