A member of the black student protest group Concerned Student 1950 gestures while addressing a crowd at the University of Missouri. Credit:AP

Almost one in 10 said they expected to participate in protests – the highest it has been in the 50 years the survey has been conducted.

Those most likely to protest are black students, 16 per cent of whom said they expected to demonstrate. And more than 41 per cent of all students said that helping promote racial understanding was either an essential or a very important goal for them.

"Student activism seems to be experiencing a revival, and last fall's incoming freshman class appears more likely than any before it to take advantage of opportunities to participate in this part of the political process," said Kevin Eagan​, director of the Co-operative Institutional Research Program of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. The largest longitudinal study of college students in the US, it reaches more than 140,000 full-time first-years at nearly 200 four-year institutions.

"We observed substantial gains in students' interest in political and community engagement across nearly every item on the survey related to these issues," he said in a release with the findings.