Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

Students Departing the Landrum Bolling Center

According to the results of a 2004 survey of the nation's college freshmen, 87 percent of responding first-year students at Earlham said that high among their motivations for going to college was gaining a general education and an appreciation for ideas. Less than 65 percent of freshmen enrolled elsewhere shared that sentiment, though nearly three in four said they made the decision to go to college with the expectation that doing so would help them to secure a better job and/or make more money in the future. Less than half of the Earlham students questioned expressed any feeling for the impact of a college education on possible future jobs and earnings. However, more than 35 percent did say they expect to continue their higher education all the way to doctoral degrees, aspirations shared by only 17 percent of their peers nationwide.

RICHMOND, Ind. — More than their national collegiate counterparts, first-year Earlham students believe racial discrimination remains a problem, that the death penalty should be abolished, and that the federal government spends too much money on the military.

Those views and others, ranging from attitudes on political identity, career options, how to pay for college, and the relative time management skills of men and women, are documented in just released results of a 2004 survey of nearly 290,000 freshmen at 440 of the nation’s baccalaureate colleges and universities.

The Comparative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) survey has been conducted since 1965 by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California at Los Angeles. It is the nation’s longest running and most comprehensive assessment of student backgrounds, attitudes and ambitions.

Earlham has administered the survey to first-year students since 1968. Last fall some 275 newly arriving freshmen provided answers to more than 70 questions presented in the latest version of poll. As usual, responses from students attending the Quaker-affiliated liberal arts college contrast markedly with those of their national peers on many matters, but especially those related to social justice and individual freedom.

For instance, 55.7 percent of Earlham’s first-year students rate “helping to promote racial understanding” as an essential or very important personal goal, compared with 29.7 percent of freshmen nationally. The latter figure is the lowest in the survey’s history, the CIRP report notes, down from a national high of 46.4 percent in 1992.

Further, over the last three years more freshmen across the country feel that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in America. In 2004, a record 22.7 percent responded to the CIRP survey that they shared this belief (up from 22.4 percent in 2003), compared with a low of 12.5 percent in 1993. However, only 9.6 percent of Earlham’s Class of 2008 considers discrimination as a problem of the past.

Asked by CIRP researchers, as well, whether they were likely to socialize frequently with someone of a different racial/ethnic group, 63.1 percent of the nation’s freshmen polled answered in the affirmative, compared with 88.2 percent of their fellow first-year students at Earlham.

Meanwhile, a third (33.2%) of freshmen nationally believe the death penalty should be abolished, whereas fully three-quarters (76.8%) of Earlham’s first-year students would abolish capital punishment. They appear to be ahead of the curve; the CIRP report notes that support for the death penalty has been declining nationally in recent years, owing perhaps to widely publicized initiatives by the American Bar Association and state government leaders in New York and Illinois to curb executions. The 33.2 percent of freshmen who favor abolition in the 2004 survey is the highest proportion since the 1980 assessment to express that view.

“Is there too much concern in the courts for the rights of criminals?” the 2004 CIRP questionnaire also asked of incoming freshmen last fall. Only 20.1 percent of Earlham students think so, compared with 58.1 percent of all freshmen that answered the question. Still, the new report indicates the latter statistic is the lowest since 1976.

As America continues its global war on terrorism, popular support for expanded military investment by the U.S. government appears to be waning among the country’s newest wave of college students. According to the latest CIRP survey results, only slightly more than 35 percent of the nation’s freshmen support an increase in federal spending on the military. That’s down from 45 percent in 2002, following the terrorists’ attacks of September 11, 2001. Barely nine percent of Earlham first years indicated they favor more military spending.

Given their relatively opposite views on the military, it likely comes as no surprise that many Earlham students also identify themselves politically in far different terms than most other first-year students nationwide. Whereas only 3.4 percent of current freshmen nationally describe themselves as coming down on the “far left” of the political spectrum, a little over 20 percent of Earlham students declared their political orientation as being far left. At the other extreme, 2.2 percent of all freshmen responding to the CIRP survey agreed with being classified as “far right” on political issues, while just .7 percent of Earlham first years said they consider their views as far right.

The largest share of freshmen nationally, 46.4 percent, say they regard themselves as “middle of the road” politically, compared with 18.2 percent of their counterparts at Earlham, where far more new students, 58.4 percent, say they are “liberal.”

Still another area where Earlham freshmen separate themselves from peers elsewhere on the national collegiate landscape involves volunteer service, both in terms of the number of hours given each week to volunteer work and the kind of work performed.

On the question of hours volunteered, 31.6 percent of Earlham students participating in the CIRP survey said they gave between one and two hours a week during the preceding year, compared to 25.2 percent of freshmen enrolled at other institutions. Slightly more than 21 percent of Earlham first years said they volunteered between three and five hours a week (vs. 14.3% nationally), while seven percent indicated they gave between six and 10 hours a week to non-paid work (5.3% nationally).

Also, by significant margins Earlham freshmen gave more time as volunteers to environmental activities (41.8%, as compared to 25.5% nationally), in help to the homeless (31.6% against 21.2%), to community improvement (39.3% vs. 25.3%), and to conflict mediation (12%/4.5%) than did their fellow freshmen elsewhere.

This altruistic attitude on the part of first-year students at Earlham is reflected further in their responses to a survey question about why they decided to go to college.

While roughly 72 percent of freshmen nationwide answered the question with “to get a better job,” only 47 percent of new Earlham students said they felt that way. Similarly, when asked if they went to college in order to make more money, almost three-quarters (70.1%) of responding students answered yes, while less than 34 percent of Earlham freshmen did so. Instead, 87 percent of Earlham students participating in the survey said they went to college to gain a general education and an appreciation for ideas, while only 65 percent of others in the poll shared that sentiment.

The College’s Office of Institutional Research expects to have available soon a more complete analysis of the CIRP survey, including more comparisons of Earlham data with both the national norm and with a group of peer institutions.

Contact:
Mary Ann Weaver, associate director of institutional research
765/983-1589 — E-Mail Mary Ann