Survey Says the kids are alright with helicopter parents

84 percent of freshman say parents are involved enough but not too involved in their decision to go to college, according to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute survey, released today.

The annual study is based on responses from 272,000 full-time freshman students
at 356 colleges and universities nationwide.

Other interesting results: While about 20 percent of whites report "too little" involvement from parents, 43 percent of Latino students report "too little" involvement. "This is a real concern, because Hispanics and Latinos historically have had the largest proportion of first-generation college students, and the process of applying to college is unfamiliar to these parents," said Sylvia Hurtado, a co-author of the report and director of the Higher Educational Research Institute.

Freshman support for same-sex marriages has expanded steadily, from 50.9 percent 1997 to
63.5 percent in 2007. The issue, however, reveals a wide gender gap: 55.3 percent of male
freshmen report that same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status, compared
with 70.3 percent of female students. Gender differences appear on other issues, as well:
More than half of all males (53.7 percent) agree with the statement that undocumented
immigrants should be denied access to public education, compared with 43.5 percent of all
female students; 43.3 percent of males and 39.2 percent of females at black colleges agreed.