Titled The American Freshman: National Norms, Fall 2015, the report indicates that 16 percent of Black freshmen anticipate participating in student protests while in college, making them the most likely of all racial groups to do so. Blacks also saw the biggest jump over the previous year with a 5.5 percentage point jump. About 10 percent of Latinos, meanwhile, reported a “very good chance” of participating in student protests, an increase of 3.2 percentage points over 2014.
In fall 2014, 5.6 percent of freshmen indicated a “very good chance” they would participate in student protests while in college, but that figure rose to 8.5 percent by last fall.
“Student activism seems to be experiencing a revival,” says Dr. Kevin Eagan, a University of California, Los Angeles, assistant professor in residence and director of its Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). “Last fall’s freshman class appears more likely than any before it to take advantage of opportunities to participate in this part of the political process.”
The growing interest in activism coincides with high-profile protests that have resulted in changes sought by student participants. For instance, after months of protesting a lack of responsiveness by university administrators to racial bias and discrimination, University of Missouri students forced the resignation of the system’s president last November.
The research findings are part of UCLA’s annual CIRP Freshman Survey, which was released Thursday.
Conducted last fall, the survey of incoming undergraduates at four-year colleges and universities nationally is part of the CIRP and is administered by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The survey results are based on responses from more than 141,000 first-time, full-time freshmen who enrolled at 199 four-year institutions of different types and academic selectivity.
