In this year’s CIRP Freshman Survey, the 47th annual administration, we see an increased
impact of the global economic situation, most importantly on the benefits incoming students
see of attending college and considerations in deciding which college to attend. Reflecting
interests in increasing college graduation rates, the 2012 survey added new questions that
provide interesting information on how incoming students understand and take account
of such issues. In the wake of the federal elections, we compare political and social views of
first-year students in 2012 with the cohort entering four years ago in 2008.
The results of this monograph are based upon data from 192,912 first-time, full-time
students entering 283 four-year colleges and universities of varying levels of selectivity and
type in the United States. These data have been statistically weighted to reflect the approximately
1.5 million first-time, full-time first-year students entering 1,613 four-year colleges
and universities across the country in 2012. This means differences of one percentage point
in the results published here reflect the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of roughly
15,000 first-year students nationally. A complete discussion of the CIRP Freshman Survey
methodology, stratification scheme, and weighting procedures is presented in Appendix A.