America's Jewish Freshmen, a UCLA study sponsored by Hillel, Finds Jewish Students More Stressed, Family-Oriented Than Were Their Baby Boomer Parents.

Like most college freshmen, Jewish students enter college morestressed, more committed to raising a family, and more likely to valuefinancial well-being than were freshmen a generation ago. However,unlike their non-Jewish counterparts, Jewish students are choosing toattend colleges further and further away from their families.

America's Jewish Freshmen, as featured by the New York Jewish Week and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,represents the largest research project ever undertaken on Jewish youngadults in the United States. The study was conducted by Linda J. Sax,UCLA education professor and director of the Cooperative InstitutionalResearch Program (CIRP) nationwide survey of college freshmen. Byexamining the behaviors and attitudes of Jewish and non-Jewish studentsover three decades, the study describes how these groups differ fromeach other, but also how they distinguish themselves as a generationquite apart from that of their parents.

The landmark study was sponsored by Hillel: The Foundation for JewishCampus Life through a grant from Leonard and Tobee Kaplan. America's Jewish Freshmenis based on 30 years of data collected by the Higher Education ResearchInstitute at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & InformationStudies.

The study analyzes data from the 1999 CIRP Freshman Survey thatcollected responses from 232,000 non-Jewish students, 8,000 Jewishstudents, and 2,000 students with at least one Jewish parent but noreligious preference (NR/JP). These students completed the 1999 CIRPFreshman Survey at 424 four-year colleges and universities nationwide.Their responses were statistically adjusted to reflect the results forall first-time full-time students entering all baccalaureateinstitutions in the U.S. Trends over 30 years also are examined bycomparing the responses of 5 million non-Jews and 200,000 Jews who haveparticipated in the CIRP study since its inception in 1966. More than1,600 higher education institutions have participated in CIRP since itbegan.

"Until now, Jewish college students have proven all but impossible tostudy scientifically apart from their non-Jewish counterparts,"explains Hillel President and International Director Richard M. Joel. "America's Jewish Freshmen fills this vacuum and provides Hillel with the data we need to better serve Jewish college students."

Major Findings

The study analyzes data from the 1999 CIRP Freshman Survey thatcollected responses from 232,000 non-Jewish students, 8,000 Jewishstudents, and 2,000 students with at least one Jewish parent but noreligious preference (NR/JP). These students completed the 1999 CIRPFreshman Survey at 424 four-year colleges and universities nationwide.Their responses were statistically adjusted to reflect the results forall first-time full-time students entering all baccalaureateinstitutions in the U.S. Trends over 30 years also are examined bycomparing the responses of 5 million non-Jews and 200,000 Jews who haveparticipated in the CIRP study since its inception in 1966. More than1,600 higher education institutions have participated in CIRP since itbegan.

The study's major highlights include:

• Raising a family has become a top personal goal for both Jewishand non-Jewish freshmen over the past three decades. Both groups alsohave become increasingly committed to financial well-being but lessstrongly committed to developing a meaningful philosophy of life,reflecting one of the most dramatic shifts in the history of the survey.

• Overtime, Jewish students have become more likely to travel long distancesto attend college, a trend not observed for non-Jewish students. Jewishstudents also are more likely than are non-Jews to report "getting awayfrom home" as a very important reason for attending college.

• Today'sJewish and non-Jewish students enter college with higher levels ofstress and lower levels of emotional health than did students in thepast. Rates of stress, depression, and emotional insecurity remainfairly comparable between the two groups.

• Over thepast three decades, interest in politics has declined dramatically forboth Jewish and non-Jewish freshmen. Nevertheless, Jewish freshmenremain more politically active than do their non-Jewish counterparts.Jewish students also view themselves as more politically liberal thando non-Jewish students, as evidenced by their more progressiveattitudes regarding sex, drugs, abortion, gender roles, andhomosexuality.

• Long-term degree aspirations have grownover time for Jewish and non-Jewish students, but remain higher amongJews. Although aspirations for master's degrees are comparable betweenthe two groups, Jewish students are more likely than are non-Jews toaspire to doctoral degrees and, most notably, law degrees.

• Parentsof both Jewish and non-Jewish freshmen have reached increasingly highlevels of educational attainment over the past three decades, with theincrease in parental attainment much more pronounced among Jews. Jewishstudents tend to come from families with higher levels of educationalattainment and income than their non-Jewish counterparts. Jewishstudents are also slightly more likely than non-Jews to have parentswho are married and living together.

• High schoolgrades have been on the rise for both Jewish and non-Jewish students,particularly throughout the 1990s. Over the past three decades, gradeshave remained significantly higher for Jews than non-Jews. Jewishstudents also report higher levels of academic self-confidence, andrate higher than non-Jews on many measures of academic "engagement" inhigh school, such as time spent studying, talking with teachers, andgetting involved in clubs and groups. Nevertheless, Jews are morelikely than non-Jews are to exhibit certain signs of academic"disengagement" during the senior year in high school, includingboredom, tardiness, and truancy. Such behaviors have become more commonfor both Jews and non-Jews over time.

• As compared tonon-Jews, Jewish students report less frequent attendance at religiousservices, fewer hours per week devoted to praying/meditating, and lowerlevels of "spirituality" (although it is unclear whether Jews andnon-Jews interpret spirituality in the same ways). Although thelikelihood of attending a religious service has remained stable overtime for both Jewish and non-Jewish students, both groups appear to bediscussing religion with greater frequency now than they have in thepast.

"America's Jewish Freshmen provides Hillel withinvaluable information for our ongoing work," says Hillel ExecutiveVice President Jay L. Rubin. "Moreover, this study clearly validatesthe re-engineering of most Hillels during the 1990s from campussynagogues to campus communities, from membership clubs toparticipatory interest groups, and from building-centered tostudent-centered institutions."

The study also touches on the topic of intermarriage by describing thereligious identification of students with only one Jewish parent.Specifically, whereas 92.6 percent of students with two Jewish parentsidentify themselves as Jewish, this figure drops to 37.8 percent whenonly the mother is Jewish, and 15.3 percent when only the father isJewish. While children of intermarriage often identify with thereligion of the non-Jewish parent, a full 40 percent claim theirreligious preference as "none" (regardless of which parent is notJewish).

The report further examines the characteristics of students who have noreligious preference but at least one Jewish parent (NR/JP). Among theNR/JP students, 20.8 percent have two Jewish parents, 34.4 percent havea Jewish mother (but not a Jewish father), and 44.8 percent have aJewish father (but not a Jewish mother). Results for NR/JP studentsgenerally fall somewhere in between those of Jewish and non-Jewishstudents (although typically resembling Jews more than non-Jews). Insome ways, however, the responses of NR/JP students fall at the"extremes." For example, as compared to Jews and non-Jews:

NR/JP students report the lowest rates of religious involvement;
NR/JP students exhibit by far the lowest levels of commitment to raising a family;
NR/JP freshmen are the most likely to have parents who are divorced or separated;
NR/JP students are the most politically liberal; and
NR/JP students display the lowest levels of physical and emotional self-confidence.

"It is important to emphasize that this study analyzes incoming collegefreshmen whose responses reflect the influence of their home life andupbringing, not college experience," says Hillel Board of DirectorsMember Stuart Himmelfarb, who helped Hillel facilitate the survey."America's Jewish Freshmen gives Hillel a profile of the young peoplewe meet at orientation and will work with throughout their collegeyears."

The largest Jewish campus organization in the world, Hillel: TheFoundation for Jewish Campus Life, is committed to creativelyempowering and engaging Jewish students through its network of over 500regional centers, campus foundations, program centers and affiliates.Its long-standing dedication to building Jewish identity, whilenurturing intellectual and spiritual growth in a pluralistic community,positions Hillel as a leader in building a stronger Jewish people andstronger Jewish future.

The Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) is based in the GraduateSchool of Education & Information Studies at the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles. The Institute serves as an interdisciplinarycenter for research, evaluation, information, policy studies, andresearch training in postsecondary education. The CIRP FreshmanSurvey-initiated in 1966 at the American Council on Education-has beenhoused at HERI since 1973. The Institute's holdings include more than ahundred datasets that are regularly maintained for analysis ofpostsecondary education.

To Order
Individual copies of the study may be downloaded free of charge above or purchased in book form with a check payable to Hillel International for $15 (including postage and handling) and mailed to:

Att: David Houser
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Charles and Lynn Schusterman International Center
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building
800 Eighth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001-3724

For More Information
Contact Jay Rubin,Executive Vice President (202) 449-6557 or Linda J. Sax, UCLACooperative Institutional Research Program Director (310)825-1925.