Attitude Test

When Alexander W. Astin starting asking college freshmen a few provocative questions in 1966--such as, How often do you drink beer?--he thought it might be a onetime experiment to help his bosses at the American Council on Education.

Three decades later, he’s still at it. Except now, he’s asking 350,000 freshmen about sex, drugs and making the honor roll.

Chancellors and presidents of more than 700 participating colleges hungrily snap up the results of Astin’s annual survey, the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive measure of students’ attitudes and aspirations.

Over those 30 years, it has enabled him to document:

* The clear impact of the women’s movement on America’s youth, as the number who believe a woman’s place is in the home has been cut in half.

* How television has encouraged materialism among today’s freshmen, who no longer view college years as a time to ponder the meaning of life.

* A roller coaster of views on marijuana, with recent classes showing renewed support for legalizing the drug popular among their predecessors in the ‘60s.

* How student activists are more likely to finish college than their apolitical colleagues--but also are more likely to be regular drinkers.

Now run out of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, the survey has grown enormously in scope and influence since Astin launched it to encourage college presidents--often preoccupied with budgets, faculty and trustees--”to think more about college teaching and student learning.”

Astin, a clinical psychologist, covered 309 colleges when he began the survey at the American Council on Education, the organization of top academic officials.

“After we did it the first year, they asked, ‘Aren’t you going to do it again?’ ” Astin said. “The longer we did the survey, the more valuable it became and the harder it was to stop.”

The participating schools chip in to cover the $600,000 cost of producing and evaluating the elaborate four-page questionnaire, which is handed out during freshman orientation or the first week of fall classes. Although students print their names on the form, the survey promises that their responses will be held “in the strictest professional confidence.”

In addition to spotting national trends, Astin provides each participating college with a sophisticated statistical breakdown of its own freshman class. He and his staff hold summer workshops to help administrators interpret the data.

“It is probably the most widely used [survey] in higher education,” said Occidental College President John Slaughter. “We use it to understand this cohort of students we get every year.”

After 30 years of taking the pulse of America’s freshman class, though, the survey has become more than a quick measure for college administrators to gauge their first-year students against those at other schools. It has become a social indicator, a way to chronicle the shifting attitudes and values of American society, as seen through the eyes of the nation’s brightest teenagers.

“Our young people are the most sensitive in our society of what is coming,” said Clark Kerr, president emeritus of the nine-campus University of California. “It’s an early warning signal of what is happening to the country.”

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To Astin, none of the social, political or economic changes stand out like the women’s movement that began in the 1960s.

Since the first survey in 1966, women have become more like men in their educational plans, career goals and even some habits.

“This is ‘You’ve come a long way, baby,’ ” Astin said, tracing a trend line that shows how the number of women who are “frequent smokers” eclipsed the number of male smokers in 1973. Young women continue to outpace men in smoking, 15.6% to 13.1%

Both sexes have changed their view of the role of women in society.

In 1967, a majority of freshmen--56.6%--agreed that “the activities of married women are best confined to the home and family.” This past fall, fewer than one-fourth of the freshman class--24.2%--held that view.

Still, telling differences remain between the sexes.

Politically, college men have drifted to the right, while women have maintained a liberal slant.

One out of four men, 24.6%, now consider themselves conservative, about half “middle of the road,” and 18.8% liberal. Among women, in contrast, 24.1% describe themselves as liberal, 54.4% middle of the road and 18% conservative.

Men are more liberal on another matter, however: casual sex. About 54% believe that “sex is OK if people like each other.” Only 32% of the women held that view.

The family background of the freshmen has also changed. More now come from broken homes. And whereas a third in 1966 considered their mother a “housewife,” only 11% do these days.

Parents are more educated than they used to be, with mothers taking the greatest strides. Nearly 40% of this year’s freshmen report that their mother has a college degree, contrasted with 18% in 1966.

College freshmen consider themselves more self-reliant than their predecessors, which Astin believes may be a result of growing up as latchkey children. Their self-esteem is at an all-time high too--a phenomenon that Astin believes may be artificially high because of grade inflation.

Twice as many freshmen now describe themselves as A students as C students, and a record percentage rate themselves “above average” or in the “top 10%” on everything from academic and artistic abilities to leadership.

At the same time, college freshmen report that they are studying less, oversleeping more and missing more classes than their predecessors over the last 30 years.

Yet despite those lapses, they have higher expectations for themselves to go on to graduate school and parlay their college experience into high-paying jobs.

All this suggests that the students of today have less interest in a college education for its own sake, Astin said. Instead, it reflects “a tremendous pressure on students to use college as a competitive edge.”

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In the late 1960s, more than 80% of college freshmen embraced “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” as an “essential” or “very important” goal. Last fall, fewer than 45% of freshmen considered it important or essential.

The goals that now compete for top rankings? Making money and getting a top-notch job.

“It appears,” Astin said, “that the late-night bull sessions are now about how to make a killing on Wall Street, not about the meaning of life.”

Television appears to play a role in this shift, Astin said, pointing to studies that show a strong correlation between the hours spent glued to the TV and materialism.

“Of all the things that kids do in college, watching television is one of the worst,” he said. “It leads to greater dissatisfaction in college, to lower academic performance and increase in materialistic values.”

Astin’s research analyst, Sarah Parrott, also noted a surge of interest in certain occupations coinciding with the popularity of particular television shows.

The percentage of students who reported that they planned to become lawyers or judges spiked at the height of “L.A. Law” in the late 1980s, Parrott said, as did interest in business careers when “Dynasty” and “Dallas” ran high in the ratings.

Support for marijuana smoking has also waxed and waned.

In the 1960s, about 20% of the students thought marijuana should be legalized. That sentiment grew to include more than half the freshmen in the late 1970s and then plummeted in the mid-1980s with a conservative shift in society.

Now, support for legalization is back on the rise, favored by a third of the freshmen.

Beer drinking continues to drop, as it has since it peaked during Ronald Reagan’s first term in the White House.

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From time to time, Astin will add--or drop--a question. Some results have helped guide decisions of college presidents. One of Astin’s conclusions, for instance, is that living in a residence hall on campus vastly enhances the educational experience.

James M. Rosser, president of Cal State L.A., said he was sufficiently intrigued by the finding that he sought the construction of 1,100 residential units on what is otherwise a commuter campus.

Perhaps to the chagrin of some college administrators, however, Astin also found that student activism, on the whole, has been a good thing--at least for the students.

The more students become engaged in activism, the more likely they will stick with college and graduate, he said, and the more they are committed to positive social change and improving race relations.

“The only negative outcome is that students are more inclined to drink . . . if they are engaged in political activism,” Astin said.

To the delight of college administrators, though, Astin also reports that volunteerism among freshmen has risen to a record 71.8%. And his follow-up studies show the good works pay off: The more committed students are to volunteering, the more likely they will make financial contributions to their colleges as alumni.

Since the first survey in 1966, women have become much more like men in their educational plans, career goals and even some of their habits.

‘It appears that the late-night bull sessions are now about how to make a killing on Wall Street, not about the meaning of life.’ --Alexander Astin

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Changing Times. . .

* Worried About Money

Over the years freshmen have become more likely to to see college as a way to get a good job than as a way to explore life’s meaning.

* Grade Inflation

Whereas the greatest numbers of frosh once described themselves as C students, A is now the rule.

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. . .Changing Views

* Keeping Up With Politics

Fewer students over the years say they keep up with politics.

* Highs and Lows on Pot

Support for legalization of marijuana has fluctuated over the years.

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Today’s Student: Random Snapshots

Some of the attitudes expressed in the survey by the current crop of college freshmen across the country:

ON PUBLIC POLICY MATTERS

* When it comes to issues, the students find common ground on such diverse political topics as environmental protection and handgun control. Nearly 82% believe the federal government is not doing enough to control pollution and that the government should do more to restrict handgun sales.

* Only 29% believe it is very important or essential to keep up to date on political affairs.

* 72% agree that “there is too much concern in the courts for the rights of criminals.”

* 72% believe a national health care plan is needed to cover everybody’s medical costs.

* Nearly four out of five (79.2%) say employers should be allowed to require drug testing of employees or job applicants.

* About 33% believe that marijuana should be legal.

* 41% have participated in an organized demonstration.

SOCIAL / PERSONAL ISSUES

* Nearly 72% perform some volunteer work.

* 53% reported drinking beer occasionally or frequently.

* 42% believe “sex is OK if people like each other,” down from a high of 52% in 1987.

* Only 16.5% expect to join a fraternity or sorority.

* 29% have frequently felt “overwhelmed by all I have to do” and 10% frequently have been depressed.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

* The median income of college freshmen’s parents: $52,600.