What joy of learning? America's current college freshmen recall their last year of high school as drudgery, marked by worry and boredom, according to a survey released Monday.
And what did they look forward to in college? They fretted over how to pay for it, according to the 34th annual American Freshman survey, conducted by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles.Entering first-time, full-time freshmen were surveyed last year by questionnaire, mostly during summer orientation or within the first few weeks of school. More than 260,000 students at 462 two- and four-year schools participated in the survey by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute.
The margin of sampling error was less than 1 percent. Results were adjusted to represent the 1.64 million freshmen entering in fall 1999, of whom about one-third attend community colleges and 55 percent are women.
A record 40 percent of the freshmen said they were "frequently bored" in their high school courses -- nearly doubling from a quarter of students first asked that question in 1985. A further sign of what researchers call "academic disengagement" was that more students spent their senior year arriving late or missing classes altogether.
It's not the best attitude to take to college.
"This is a signal for colleges and universities to work closely with student groups and leaders," said Jennifer Lin of the United States Student Association, a Washington-based group serving 3.5 million students.
"They need to make sure if the students are already feeling disengaged in high school, that they are going to get the support, mentoring, tutoring and other services they need to make it through college," Lin said.
UCLA Professor Alexander Astin, founding director of the survey begun in 1966, felt this year's most important finding was students' lessening interest in activism.
Only 36 percent of students felt it important or essential to "influence social values"; just 21 percent wanted to take part in community action programs; 28 percent were interested in becoming community leaders.
"That's been a fairly recent phenomenon," Astin said, noting it reflects a society favoring individualism, materialism and competition.
He added, "We all have some part of us that wants to do the right thing. That shows up in the voluntarism and wanting to teach. The better side of us has to pop out somewhere."
Encouraging, he said, was the 75 percent of students who did volunteer work in high school -- "the bright light on the horizon."
Interest in teaching was expressed by 11 percent of students, a 30-year high, but far below the 1968 peak of 24 percent. A record 8 percent want to be artists or performers.
The group was confident in one area: More rate themselves academically above average -- 59 percent, compared with others their own age, and 34 percent reported earning an "A" average in high school, more than in previous years and indicative of increasing grade inflation, the researchers said.
About half the students expected to earn at least a "B" average in college.
The 1999 survey also suggests a maturing of American students. They're a bit older, taking longer to get out of high school. In high school they partied less, drank less beer and, after a decade of increased smoking, the survey found students smoke less. And more aspire to be teachers and performers.