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the Know
The 2002 American Freshman
Last September’s entering
freshman class is more interested in the arts, more politically engaged,
slightly more conservative, and more likely to worry about the nation’s
weak economy.
The appeal of business careers has
declined among college freshmen, while a record high percentage of
students aspire to “become accomplished in one of the performing
arts,” notes the 2003 Survey of Freshmen from the Higher Education
Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California at Los Angeles.
An all-time low of 13.8 percent of
students are looking to pursue a business career and a high of 16.1
percent are looking toward the arts. Nonetheless, most—73.2 percent—of
the survey’s respondents said that being ”very well off
financially” was essential, compared with 40.6 percent who said
that developing a meaningful philosophy was very important.
In the late 1960s, developing a meaningful
life philosophy was the top value held by students, with acquiring
wealth in fifth or sixth place for several years.
This year’s UCLA survey questioned
282,549 first-year students from 437 four-year colleges and universities
during their freshmen orientation and first week of classes. Unlike
previous years, only responses from students at four-year institutions
were included in the results.
This year’s report also marks
the first time college freshmen were surveyed since the World Trade
Center and Pentagon attacks on September 11, 2001, which might help
explain why slightly more students now identify themselves as conservatives
and an all-time high of 45 percent said they support an increase in
federal military spending.
On the other hand, more college students
report that they are liberal on social issues. The percentage of students
supporting gay marriages, for example, increased from 57.9 percent
to 59.3 percent, while a record low 24.8 percent said they supported
laws prohibiting gay relationships.
For the second year in a row, an increasing
percentage of students think politics is important, and 32.9 percent,
up from 31.4 percent, consider following politics “very important” or “essential”—still
well below the 1966 survey in which 60.3 percent answered affirmatively.
The weak national economy also seems
to be influencing this year’s freshmen. The percentage of students
who reported some or major concern in paying for college rose to 65.3
percent, and 47.1 percent said there is a good chance they would get
a job to help pay for college.
More on the HERI survey can be found
at www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html.
| From The
Lectern |
We
come then to the question presented: Does segregation of
children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even
though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors
may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group
of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does....We
conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine
of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore,
we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated
for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of
the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection
of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
—U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of
Education, May 17, 1954
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