This dissertation, written in April 2000, focuses on African American, Hispanic, and White community college students' attitudes toward affirmative action in college admissions. Specifically, the study examines the association between attitudes toward affirmative action in college admissions, student background characteristics, educational aspirations, self-interest, racial affect, and institutional characteristics. The author focuses on finding out whether attitudes toward affirmative action in college admissions varied by race/ethnicity, gender, and future aspirations among students attending community colleges. Some of the key findings of the document are as follows: (1) 74% of African American and 57.5% of Hispanics agreed strongly with racial discrimination still being a problem while 46.4% of White students reported similarly; (2) half of Whites and over two thirds of students of color favored using affirmative action in college admissions; (3) the lower the GPA of White students, the more they favored abolishing affirmative action in college admissions whereas the higher the GPA of African American students they more they favored using affirmative action; and (4) whereas race/ethnicity, gender, annual family income and political views significantly predicted the odds of support or disfavor for affirmative action, separate logistic regression analyses produced different affects by racial/ethnic group. Contains 3 appendices and numerous graphs and charts. (MZ)