(NAME-MCE) 40 Years of Changes in the Student Body

[Anselmo Villanueva]

For a better format, graphics, and links to other articles for the
story below, surf to:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/09/cirp

You will note on one of the tables when you go to the site that they
are tracking the growth of students who are multiracial/multiethnic --
not too common for these kinds of research projects.

For the complete report, surf to:

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/40yrtrends.php

Anselmo
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April 9, 2007

40 Years of Changes in the Student Body

For four decades, the University of California at Los Angeles has
administered the Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshmen
Survey, recording the values, attitudes and backgrounds of the high
school graduates who will become the next batch of American college
students. Their self-reported answers form the backbone of a large
trove of data that has served to illuminate trends in higher
education.

Today, UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute is releasing a broad
overview of trends gleaned from the survey. The report, "The American
Freshman: Forty-Year Trends 1966–2006," highlights some striking
changes in the makeup of college freshman classes, many of which
confirm widely reported trends — but not without a few surprising
findings.

Amid reports documenting the widening gap between the lowest and
highest earners in America, as well as concern among educators that
selective institutions are mainly the domain of the financially
advantaged, it might not come as a surprise that today's freshmen are
the most well-off since at least 35 years ago — with median incomes 60
percent above the national average, as compared to 46 percent above
average in 1971. The report also highlighted a difference between
public and private incoming freshmen: the income of families sending
students to public institutions is rising faster than that for
students at private colleges.

Meanwhile, two developments in students' attitudes toward life provide
either contradictory or nuanced responses — depending on one's point
of view — about financial goals and altruism. Being well-off is
students' number-two priority (73.4 percent) — second only to raising
a family — but helping others comes in third, the highest it's been as
a priority in 20 years.

The percentage of freshmen last year who predicted they'd participate
in community service also increased significantly, while being a
community leader was rated more important than ever (about a third
considered it "very important" or "essential"). The report also noted
the increased engagement in community service at the high school
level, although it wasn't clear how much of that was due to college
admissions pressures and graduation requirements. Instead of
concluding that today's students are becoming more materialstic, John
H. Pryor, director of the CIRP survey, interpreted these trends as
showing that students are "very interested in raising families and
helping others, both of which are accomplished with greater ease if
one is well-off financially."

These trends have been ongoing within a rapidly changing demographic
environment. In 1971, 90.9 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen
were white, while today the percentage is down to 76.5. Since then,
all minority groups have made attendance gains, although at different
rates and some, like African Americans, already reached their
numerical peak and, due to various factors, have slowly decreased
their share of the freshman population.

The report also highlighted several other trends:

The proportion of students claiming no religious affiliation has
increased, from 13.6 to 19.1 percent between 1966 and 2006. The
fraction of Roman Catholics remained stable, but the share of Jews and
Protestants decreased. There was a similar decline among their
parents.

About two-thirds of students today socialize with people of another
race or ethnicity in high school, and a similar percentage expect to
do so in college. This contrasts markedly with students' views on
racism and their institutions' obligation to foster interracial
dialogue: A little over a third believe promoting racial understanding
is "essential" or "very important," down from its peak just after the
Rodney King incident in 1992, while 19.1 percent believe to some
extent that racism is no longer a major problem in society. In a
departure of tone from the rest of the document, the authors expressed
explicit disapproval of these trends, writing, "students' personal
goals and beliefs at college entry may be cause for concern."

While students are becoming more and more prepared for college work —
in terms of the number of years spent studying certain subjects — gaps
favoring men over women persist in the physical and computer sciences,
but no longer in mathematics.
Students' self-confidence in academic ability continues to soar, with
68.6 percent considering themselves "above average" or in the top 10
percent of their peer group. At the same time, grades are continuing
to reinforce those beliefs. Inflation has intensified in the past 20
years, with 24.1 percent of students — a record — reporting an A-
high-school average last year. Higher grades are also more likely with
more AP and honors courses.

In a finding that's not likely to surprise many students, tardiness is
also becoming more common in the last year of high school. In the past
few years, however, that has slightly reversed, due perhaps to
increased vigilance on the part of college admissions officers
fighting the spread of senioritis.

The percentage of students applying to more than three colleges has
almost tripled since 1967, to 56.5 percent. But it might not be as out
of hand as popular media reports suggest: only 2.2 percent last year
applied to 12 or more colleges.

The importance of going to a college with a high reputation has
remained virtually unchanged since 1983, according to responses, but
rankings have factored in as increasingly important in making that
determination. Still, only 16.4 percent of respondents found rankings
to be very important in their overall decision.

Students are becoming more polarized. Moderates are in decline, and
more are labeling themselves as either liberal or conservative.
Another interesting finding (which might surprise David Horowitz)
concerns campus speakers' freedom to express themselves: "Over half
(55.1 percent) of conservative (and far right) students believe that
colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers compared to only 28.5
percent of liberal (and far left) students. Thus, not only may some
polarizing issues divide students, but the method by which they engage
each other in dialogue concerning these issues may also be a point of
disagreement."
— Andy Guess