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Foreword |
Great Expectations is the most recent and ambitious survey that the Public
Agenda organization has conducted to probe the public's attitudes and opinions about
higher education. Its authors, John Immerwahr and Tony Foleno, have our congratulations
on a masterful job. We are particularly impressed with their use of information from
earlier and related surveys to interpret the results of this, the third of a series
of three aimed at stimulating public discourse about the role of colleges and universities
in maintaining and enhancing the opportunities for all Americans to participate fully
in our society.*
This survey is unique in selectively oversampling to reach a group most interested
in higher education: parents of high school students. Slightly over 1,000 respondents
were drawn from the general public. In addition, the survey oversampled 201 white
parents, 202 African American parents and 202 Hispanic parents in order to be able
to distinguish these parents' views about higher education from each other. As a
result of the findings made possible by this oversampling, Great Expectations
will, we believe, lay to rest the myth that parents within minority groups do not
value higher education as highly as the general public.
The survey results should encourage friends of higher education. Eighty-seven percent
of Americans believe that a college education has become as important as a high school
diploma used to be. And there is virtual unanimity (93%) that the price of higher
education should not prevent qualified and motivated students from going to college.
It is less encouraging, however, to learn that the high marks that the public gives
to higher education are not founded on familiarity with it, and that people are much
more concerned about the environment, health care, care for the elderly, and the
public schools than they are about higher education. Deborah Wadsworth's thoughtful
afterword to this report warns of the possible dangers of this lack of awareness
and concern, and we urge that it not be overlooked.
We must express our appreciation of the time and assistance given the project by
the members of the project's advisory committee: Alfredo G. de los Santos, Jr., Wallace
D. Loh, Diana S. Natalicio, Ralph S. Saul and Virginia B. Smith. We appreciate the
thoughtful contributions of William Doyle, who directed the project at the National
Center. And we are grateful to those whose financial support made the survey possible:
The Ford Foundation, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, and the National
Center for Postsecondary Improvement. Although the results are not reflected in this
report, seven individual state reports will also be published thanks to support for
oversampling by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (for Colorado, Florida
and Pennsylvania), by The James Irvine Foundation (for California), by the Illinois
Board of Higher Education (for Illinois), by New York University (for New York State),
and by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (for North Carolina).
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Patrick M. Callan
President
National Center for Public Policy and HigherEducation
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Robert Zemsky
Professor and Director
Institute for Research on Higher Education
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* The Price of Admission: The Growing Importance of Higher Education,
by John Immerwahr (San Jose: National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education,
and Public Agenda, 1998) and Taking Responsibility: Leaders' Expectations of Higher
Education, by John Immerwahr (San Jose: National Center for Public Policy and
Higher Education, and Public Agenda, 1999).
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© 2000 The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
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