There are 105,000 Jewish students in American colleges and universities–9.1 per cent of the national student body–according to what is described as the first complete survey ever made in the field.
The survey, made by B’nai B’rith’s Hillel Foundation Research Bureau, headed by Dr. Lee J. Levinger, covered 1,319 institutions in the United States and Canada, or 9.1 per cent of all those in existence, with an aggregate registration of 1,150,000 students.
The 105,000 Jewish students represent one for every 42 Jews–probably the largest proportion of college students of any group in the world and the Jewish proportion in colleges of 9.1 per cent compares with a 3.5 per cent Jewish ratio in the population.
In other words, the percentage of Jewish students is two and a half times that of the Jewish population. The Jews tend to concentrate in the great universities, forming 14 per cent of the students in these institutions and 13.5 per cent of the students in private professional schools. In separate arts colleges they are only 6 per cent, 1.65 per cent in teachers colleges and 1.7 per cent in junior colleges.
Of the colleges studied, 477 have no Jewish students at all, while 113 have 100 or more each. These 113 institutions contain 90 per cent of all Jewish students, the rest scattered among 729 schools.
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