They express a profound lack of trust in the political process, even in the face of a dramatic increase of volunteerism among college students. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 70 percent of high school graduates go on to some kind of college. Higher education therefore has a particular opportunity to educate students in their democratic rights and responsibilities. The presidential declaration makes it clear that such education does not mean teaching students to be a part of some nostalgic notion of America s democratic past. These college presidents also worry about the persistence of poverty in many American communities, often in those where campuses are located.
Altruism drives campuses to improve community conditions, but self-interest also motivates many.
Some institutions sit in neighborhoods whose high crime rates scare potential students and make it hard to house faculty nearby. All campuses need to be concerned that the proportion of college-goers who come from the top 25 percent of the income pyramid as compared with the bottom 25 percent has grown from 4 to 1 in 1979 to 11 to 1 in 1999. Ultimately, we have an obligation to connect values of citizenship with the widening inequality of wealth and the erosion of civic life that accompanies it. Our ideas about fostering civic life on campus have evolved over the past twenty years. By the late 1980s, however, it had become clear that volunteerism was not enough.