Poll Finds Most Americans Opposed to Race-Based College Admissions

By Ben Gross

More than three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) do not want colleges and universities to take a student’s race into account when making selections, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Between June 5-9, the joint poll asked a random sample of 1,007 adults via telephone a number of questions, including:

“Do you support or oppose allowing universities to consider applicants’ race as a determining factor in deciding which students to admit?”

“Do you support or oppose having the federal government give same-sex couples who are legally married the same benefits given to other couples?”

For the first question, 76 percent responded that they oppose the use of racial factors in determining college admissions and 63 percent responded that they support the federal government giving legally married same-sex couples the same benefits as other married couples.

The poll result demonstrates a fairly unified American public regarding two key issues on which the Supreme Court is slated to offer decisions this month, analysts say.

While the high court determines its opinion on the college admissions issue, Kaplan Test Prep recently undertook a survey of 689 high school students who had taken a Kaplan Test Prep course and found that 60 percent of them responded that it is “very important” or “somewhat important” for a college to have a racially diverse student body.