All across the country, America's newest college students are tuning out.
In the last four years, interest in staying in touch with political issues has dipped more than 10 percent among incoming freshman classes nationwide.
According to a survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, only 31.9 percent of freshmen nationwide said that "keeping up with political affairs" is an important goal in life for them.
"There seems to be a massive disengagement from politics," director of the freshman survey Alexander Astin told the Chronicle of Higher Education.
"Most students were completing the surveys at the height of election campaigns, and you would certainly think that in an election year there would be an increase in interest in political affairs."
Fifty-one percent of the freshmen from private, highly selective non-sectarian colleges -- a group that includes Dartmouth -- said they considered it important to keep up with politics.
The nationwide average for 1993 was 39.4 percent, and that for highly selective, non-sectarian four year colleges was 56.9 percent. Both averages have dropped significantly since 1993.
The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute conducts a survey of freshman attitudes every year.
Associate Director of the survey Linda Sax said the survey is drawn from a pool of 670 schools and more than 300,000 students.
The numbers are then weighted to reflect all 1.5 million freshmen in the nation, Sax said.
She said the drop fits in with a general trend over the course of the last few years.
"A lot of it has to do with the education that the freshmen are getting in high school," Sax said. "We believe that the freshmen aren't receiving enough education or information in high school."
Instead, Sax said they receive their education from television, whose broadcasts are "very simplistic, often very negative, which we believe turns them off."
Sax said the higher numbers for more selective colleges did not come as a surprise.
"It's not unexpected at all because we found that the students who want to keep up with politics are generally from higher income families," Sax said.
They also tend to have highly educated parents, she added.
Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith said Dartmouth's Class of 1998 sits well above both the national average and the average for highly selective schools.
"The survey suggests that not only are Dartmouth students much more politically engaged than those numbers suggest but also that Dartmouth students are much more interested than students at comparable colleges," Goldsmith said.
"Dartmouth is higher than any of the national averages that I've seen," Goldsmith said.
The Freshman Office conducts its own survey every year just prior to matriculation. Goldsmith declined to release the actual numbers from Dartmouth's survey.
The change in the number of freshmen who said they were interested in keeping up with current news has undergone an "insignificant" change since last year, Goldsmith said.
But Sax said the numbers at colleges like Dartmouth still indicate a large degree of apathy.
"It's less true, but even so half the students aren't interested in politics," she said.
The UCLA survey also shows a larger number of freshmen nationwide consider themselves "middle-of-the-road," and not far-right or far-left, than freshmen who are at highly selective colleges.
Only 39.4 percent of freshmen at highly selective colleges consider themselves "middle-of-the-road," compared with 52.6 percent nationwide.
Sax said this does not represent any significant change.
"Generally we've found more liberal attitudes at private, highly selective colleges," she said.
Nationwide support for the legalization of marijuana has gone up from 28.2 percent in 1993 to 32.1 percent this year. Support for the legislation to outlaw homosexuality reached an all time nadir, down to 33.9 percent from 36.2 percent last year.
At the same time, only 20.1 percent of students nationwide support the abolition of capital punishment.
At Dartmouth, students themselves offer divided opinions over the political engagement of their fellow classmates.
Class of 1998 President Randi Barnes said she sees a lot of involvement, but much of this is directed at on-campus issues and not at outside events.
Barnes said the isolation of the campus makes many students lose touch with everyday news.
"At home I used to eat dinner and watch the news at the same time," Barnes said. But she said she can't do that at Dartmouth.
Chris Houpt '98, a member of the Young Democrats, said he sees more students who care about campus issues than about outside politics.
"It does kind of seem like people are more interested in campus issues or nothing at all," than about current events, Houpt said.
Tobi Edwards '98, who is involved with both the Conservative Union at Dartmouth and also writes for The Dartmouth Review, said although she has encountered more politically active students at the College than in high school, a large part of the student body still seems apathetic.
"There's a group of students that are very interested," Edwards said. "But I'd think probably the majority doesn't care."
Scott Burns '97, co-president of the Young Democrats, said he has seen a rise this year in freshmen involvement.
Twenty to 30 freshmen are currently involved with the group, he said.
Burns said Democrats are rallying against the tide of Republicanism seen in this year's elections.
"I would attribute the increased activity in Young Democrats because we're sort of onthe defensive again. I think it's out of fear of Newt Gingrich taking over that the Young Democrats has sort of rallied," he said.
The UCLA survey also shows the number of freshmen who say they consider participating in community action programs an important goal has dropped from 26.1 percent in 1992 to 24.4 percent this year.
This trend mirrors a tapering off of the number of Dartmouth freshmen involved in community activities.
Randall Quan '92, the volunteer coordinator for Tucker Foundation, said he thinks overall the number of '98s involved in community service activities has declined.
"It does seem in a way that at least the involvement has dropped from previous years," Quan said.
"I think the interest level has remained about the same, but the actual number of people following through and getting involved has dropped."
But Quan said often students wait until their sophomore year before they get involved with community service.
