Record Share of College Freshmen Plan to Volunteer, and Their Political Involvement Is Up, Survey Finds

Two out of three college freshmen say it is essential or very important to help others who are in difficulty, the highest percentage in a quarter-century, and a record number -- 83 percent -- say they volunteered at least occasionally during their senior year of high school. Those are among the findings of the annual national survey of incoming freshmen, which is part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Project conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.