rule for comparisons....
a) Like/Unlike - to compare NOUNS ONLY....
Like John, Mary is intelligent....here John and Mary are compared.
Unlike stars, which are pretty far from earth, asteroids XXXXX......here stars and asteriods are compared.

b) As - to compare CLAUSES ONLY. Also note that we need a sub and verb in a clause.
Just as john did, Mary sang well for the concert....here mary sang well and John did are compared

i dont know how far my explanation helped u but, for more details pls do refer mahattan SC..its really good and i'm sure anyone can easily digest it....

what are we comparing here???
we are comparing owning ...is a goal...of students AND same mentalitiy of the earlier gen ..so its clear that we have two clauses to compare...A is out

one more point to be noted is ...the structure of phrases compared shld be the same....the tense, prepositions, pronouns etc...shld be the same in the clauses compared..here the 1st clause is owning ...is a goal of a majority of students...note the preposition OF...so as per rule the same preposition shld come in the 2nd clause...this boils down to B and E. also we need to have a verb in the clause and this is present only in E. So E is the ans...

Option A.
this is an incorrect option because 'Like' can be used to compare two Nouns.

Option B.
,'as that of earlier generations' this is the last part of the sentence and it does not carry any verb, thus, making it incorrect.

Option C
The dangling 'did' was not properly placed in this option.

Option D.
This is an awkward construction which requires proper modification.this option is incorrect.

Option E.
This option contains a verb, well placed in the option. It is important to know that 'AS' is used to compare two clauses.And the two clauses here are;
'young adults and earlier generations'.
Thus, this is the correct answer.