Report analyzes Asian American students

Asian American college students are facing more obstacles in higher education than in previous years, according to a UCLA report.

The report, “Beyond Myths: The Growth and Diversity of Asian American College Freshmen, 1971-2005,” states that Asian Americans do not enjoy universal academic success in higher education, contrary to popular belief. Fewer students are attending their first-choice schools, and more face problems in financing their education, according to the report.

The data analyzed were compiled from 361,271 Asian American incoming freshmen students who took the Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institution at UCLA from 1971 to 2005.

“There is no comparable survey about incoming freshmen,” John Pryor, the program’s director, said. “This report provides the largest and most comprehensive analysis of data on Asian American college students. It was a project that we (at the program) were fully behind.”

Oiyan Poon, one of five co-authors of the report and a graduate student at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, said the report debunks popular beliefs about Asian Americans.

But she stressed that the data are skewed because they include information about incoming freshmen students only from four-year colleges, not community colleges.

“The largest segment of Asians are actually at community colleges and are not included in this study,” Poon said. “But we think these students reflect the trends in this report. There is a myth that Asian Americans do not benefit from affirmative action, but we have found this is not true.”

The number of Asian Americans attending their first-choice colleges has declined and is lower than the national average.

“If students were not benefiting from affirmative action, then there would not have been a large decrease in students attending their first-choice colleges after the University of California ended affirmative action with Proposition 209 in the mid-1990s,” Poon said. “But there has been a larger decrease than many other ethnic groups.”

In 2005, 51.8 percent of Asian American freshmen reported they were attending their first-choice institutions, compared to 68 percent in 1974, according to the report. The national average in 2005 was 69.8 percent.

But the aspirations of Asian Americans are higher than average, said Don Nakanishi, a co-author of the report and director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

The percentage of Asian American freshmen who have applied to six or more colleges has increased from 10.7 percent in 1980 to 35.9 percent in 2005, more than twice that of the national population. In 2005, only 17.4 percent of freshmen nationally applied to six or more colleges, according to the report.

Furthermore, incoming Asian American freshmen aspire to more advanced graduate degrees and intensive careers than average students, Nakanishi said.

“Asian Americans aspire to be doctors, engineers or business executives ““ very, very high positions. These careers also reflect a search for financial security and a desire for a clear display of merit, a right versus wrong answer,” he said.

These aspirations reflect their backgrounds, Nakanishi said, since many come from low-income families.

The report identifies discrepancies in income of Asian American student households compared to the national average. In 2005, 30.9 percent of Asian American students came from families with a household income of less than $40,000, while the national percentage was 22.7 percent.

Asian American students depend more heavily on parents and relatives and employment instead of loans to finance their education, according to the report.

“Parents do not want their children to be burdened by loans,” Nakanishi said.

Therefore, financial aid has become a more important factor in determining where a student goes to college, and an increasing number of students work while going to school.

The report also states that Asian Americans’ self-confidence is increasing. Entering Asian American college students are more likely to rate themselves above average in areas of social self-confidence, public speaking and leadership abilities, according to the report.

But the report stresses not to take these gains for granted.

“It is important to recognize the discrepancies among Asian American ethnic subgroups in their educational attainment and to address the challenges that especially low-income or first-generation Asian American students face in higher education,” the report reads.

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