Students Back Use of Race in Admissions

A large majority of the nation’s college freshmen support the use of race as a criterion in college admissions, a new report has found.

According to a survey of freshmen attitudes released today by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, 70% of the 240,000 students responding believed college officials should give race at least some special consideration when deciding who to admit.

But when asked specifically about the term “affirmative action,” the students’ support declined markedly. Only 50% of freshmen who enrolled last fall said affirmative action in admissions should be continued, while the other half said it should be abolished.

“Young people understand that there are groups in our society that haven’t been well-served, where special consideration is justified. And they’re willing to endorse a policy where that is taken into account,” said Alexander W. Astin, director of the annual survey, now in its 30th year.

“But ‘affirmative action’ has become loaded. This just highlights the fact that we’re dealing with a highly politicized issue.”

The survey, the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive assessment of student attitudes and plans, found that freshmen at 473 institutions around the country support the consideration of a wide array of variables in college admissions, not just academic achievement alone.

Ninety-six percent of freshmen believed economic background should be taken into account, while 86% felt citizenship status was an important criterion. More than 84% felt athletic ability should count in an applicant’s favor, while more than 58% felt children of alumni should receive special consideration.

The survey also revealed other trends, including the continuing erosion of college students’ political interest and engagement. Last year, the survey announced that the number of freshmen who said keeping up with political affairs was an important goal in life had dropped to 32%--a record low.

This year’s class fell even lower, to 28%, the survey reported. Similarly, the percentage of students who said they discussed politics frequently reached an all-time low of less than 15%.

Astin said the effects of this growing disinterest could be seen in other areas of the survey. While student activism had been on the upswing in the early 1990s, since 1992 the survey has reflected that students have become less and less interested in cleaning up the environment, promoting racial understanding and influencing social values or the political structure.

“Apparently, increasing political apathy goes hand in hand with disengagement from social action,” Astin said.

The survey also shed light on how students spend their last year in high school, concluding that for many, it is a largely wasted period. Compared to participants in previous surveys, freshman who enrolled in college last fall reported spending less time studying, less time talking with teachers outside of class and less time in student clubs during their senior year of high school.

Moreover, the survey found that 33.9% of students--the highest percentage ever--reported being frequently bored in class during their senior years.

“These disturbing trends suggest that we need to redouble efforts to reform and strengthen our secondary schools,” Astin said. “You would hope this would be a wake up call for educators.”

Students’ social views were a mixture of conservative and liberal. On the conservative side, the survey indicated declining support for sexual and reproductive freedom. Less than 59% of freshmen supported keeping abortion legal, as compared with a high of 64.9% in 1990.

At the same time, support for the statement, “If two people like each other, it’s all right for them to have sex even if they’ve known each other for a very short time,” has reached an all-time low. Only 42.7% of students agreed with that notion, as compared to a high of 51.9% in 1987.

On the liberal side, the belief that homosexual relationships should be prohibited has declined from a high of 53.2% in 1987 to an all-time low of 30.6%. And support for legalizing marijuana has reached a 15-year high of 33.8%.

The report revealed an apparent shift in students’ professional aspirations, as interest rose in education careers and dropped in the fields of law and engineering. Thirteen percent of women and 5.8% of men--or 9.7% overall--said they planned to become elementary or secondary school teachers, the most students to do so in more than two decades.

But interest in engineering dropped to its lowest point since 1975, with just 6.4% of students planning careers in that field. And the number of students who want to be lawyers dropped to an all-time low of just 3.4%.

Financial worries continued to weigh heavily on students. Reliance on loans to pay for college continued to rise, the survey found, and more than 71% of students indicated they were concerned about having enough money to complete their studies.