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The 2004 College Freshman

Annual survey provides a comprehensive portrait of the changing character of students entering the nation's four-year colleges and universities as freshmen.

The nation's 2004 entering college freshman class is more politically polarized than at any time in recent years, according to this year's UCLA freshman survey.

The proportion of students identifying themselves as at the political extremes remains small, 3.4 percent "far left" and 2.2 percent "far right," says the survey's director, Linda J. Sax, but these numbers reflect an increase from last year. Identification as either "liberal" (26.1) percent or "conservative" (21.9 percent) is also up from last year. "Middle-of-the-road" remains the leading category (46.4 percent) but dropped nearly 4 percentage points from last year to reach a 30-year low.

The fall freshman survey, now in its 39th year, is conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Findings are based on the responses of 289,452 students at 440 of the nation's baccalaureate colleges and universities. The data are adjusted to reflect the attitudes of the nation's 1.2 million full-time, entering freshmen in those colleges and universities.

More students reported being interested in politics and current events this year as well. More than 34 percent of students ranked "keeping up to date with political affairs" as one of their "very important" or "essential" life goals, continuing a four-year rise in that figure. In 2000 only 28.1 percent gave the same answer, but this is still far below the peak of 60.3 percent in 1968.

On the economic front, a record-high 47.2 percent of students expect to work while attending college, and an increasing percentage plan to take on large chunks of debt to pay their tuition. The proportion of freshmen who anticipated owing at least $3,000 at the end of their first year of college reached 29.6 percent, rising steadily from 24.1 percent in 2001. Studies have shown that working more than 20 hours a week increases the likelihood that a student will drop out of college.

Continuing a trend, student high school grades have improved, with the number of students earning A averages in high school increasing to 47.5 percent, an all-time high and far above the low of 17.6 percent in 1968.

The percentage of students who were frequently bored in class also reached a new high of 42.8 percent.

A summary of the survey is available at www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/PDFs/04_Norms_Flyer.pdf.