
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 11, 1995                   TAG: 9501190022
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STUDENT APATHY

FEW COLLEGE students discuss politics frequently, and fewer than a third think it is important to keep up with public policy issues. Yet more and more, they worry that the rising cost of tuition will keep them from graduating.

Perhaps the 19 percent who find their futures thus in doubt encompass the 16 percent who talk seriously about politics, with the balance made up of a smattering of friends or sweethearts who understand the implications of the growing financial burden.

Interesting or not, politics does affect college students in a way as immediate and significant as whether state funding will subsidize higher education enough to keep tuitions within reach.

Of course, a record level of political apathy, revealed in a survey of 238,000 college freshmen by the American Council on Education, does not imply a wave of students who care nothing about society. By no means is politics the only way to be involved in and contribute to one's community. For example, young people in record numbers nowadays are dedicating themselves to volunteer work and community service.

College years can be a precious time for expanding one's understanding of the world by concentrating on the world of ideas. This holds benefits for society whether the result is advancing the sum of scientific knowledge or simply turning out a citizen with a broader understanding of the forces that shape society, not the least of which is what lies in the hearts of human beings.

The ivory tower is located in a more mundane place called the "real world," though, where hard decisions have to be made that will affect students now through their retirement days. And how those decisions are made will depend largely on politics.

There is a growing sense among students, a Virginia Tech official told The Washington Post, that "there's nothing you can really do about changing politics, so why bother?" Perhaps those students missed the news about the last congressional election.

by CNB