Costa Mesa : Most OCC Students Plan to Graduate, Poll Says

About 77% of the full-time freshmen surveyed this fall at Orange Coast College plan to graduate and receive an Associate in Arts degree from the community college, about 18% more than community college freshmen nationwide, campus officials said.

The American Council on Education and UCLA jointly surveyed first-time freshmen at 373 two-year colleges in the nation this fall. At Orange Coast College, 657 freshmen took part in the survey, and the result showed that 76.5% plan to obtain an A.A. degree. The survey at the other two-year colleges in the nation showed that only 58.1% plan to obtain A.A. degrees from their institutions.

The survey found that more Orange Coast students come from more educated families than do the students of other community colleges surveyed. A total of 54% of the freshmen surveyed said that their fathers have either a bachelor’s or master’s degree. That total compares with 25% in the nationwide poll.

About 38% of the Orange Coast freshmen surveyed said that their mothers had a bachelor’s or master’s degree, compared to about 19% of the national sample.

In the survey, the major reasons the students cited for going to Orange Coast were “low tuition” and “good academic reputation.”

Although the community college is in the heart of a politically conservative coastal region, only 20.7% of the students surveyed listed themselves as being conservative. A total of 49.9% of the students said they were “middle of the road” politically, and slightly more than 26% called themselves liberal.