Political Leanings by Occupation and Industry

[burbuja0512]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican. While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

[sanantone]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

[alexf.1990]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

It's stunning that universities aren't attempting to incorporate more republicans in their diversity efforts. As few as 12% of Harvard undergrads identify as conservative and a similar number of professors identify as such. The whole point of college is to learn critical thinking skills and challenge pre-conceived notions. Turning universities into echo chambers for either side doesn't appear like a good long term strategy.

[dfrecore]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

It's stunning that universities aren't attempting to incorporate more republicans in their diversity efforts. As few as 12% of Harvard undergrads identify as conservative and a similar number of professors identify as such. The whole point of college is to learn critical thinking skills and challenge pre-conceived notions. Turning universities into echo chambers for either side doesn't appear like a good long term strategy.

First, I'm guessing that more 18-yo's are liberal than conservative in the first place.  That's just the way of the world.  I was certainly more liberal at that age than I am now.

Second, I will say that I have a14-yo kid who is VERY conservative (probably more than me), and we've already determined that his best bet to get through college is to keep his mouth SHUT during those 4 years.  He will not be able to say his views aloud on campus, no matter where he goes.  He will be trying very hard to choose a school that will at least tolerate more conservative kids, but he definitely has already ruled out any schools that are actively antagonistic towards the military, or conservatives.  My 16-yo who is maybe fiscally conservative, and socially moderate, has already decided to go to a CC, then she's not sure she wants to go to a 4-yr school at all.  She may end up doing one of the Big 3 at that point.  She just does not want any part of the "college experience" that she sees, and doesn't want to be around crazy people (she saw a lot of the BLM/Antifa/Anti-Free Speech stuff at Berkeley).  If they're only 14 & 16 and have figured this out, you might see why fewer conservative kids want to go to college.  Why go somewhere you're not wanted?

[sanantone]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

It's stunning that universities aren't attempting to incorporate more republicans in their diversity efforts. As few as 12% of Harvard undergrads identify as conservative and a similar number of professors identify as such. The whole point of college is to learn critical thinking skills and challenge pre-conceived notions. Turning universities into echo chambers for either side doesn't appear like a good long term strategy.

I don't know about Harvard, but I've applied to many schools and never had to reveal anything that would give away my political views during the admissions process. Since political ideology is not a protected class, we're probably never going to see Affirmative Action-type policies for it.

As for professors, you can't recruit what is not there. For some fields, colleges can't even find enough PhDs, period.

---

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

It's stunning that universities aren't attempting to incorporate more republicans in their diversity efforts. As few as 12% of Harvard undergrads identify as conservative and a similar number of professors identify as such. The whole point of college is to learn critical thinking skills and challenge pre-conceived notions. Turning universities into echo chambers for either side doesn't appear like a good long term strategy.

First, I'm guessing that more 18-yo's are liberal than conservative in the first place.  That's just the way of the world.  I was certainly more liberal at that age than I am now.

Second, I will say that I have a14-yo kid who is VERY conservative (probably more than me), and we've already determined that his best bet to get through college is to keep his mouth SHUT during those 4 years.  He will not be able to say his views aloud on campus, no matter where he goes.  He will be trying very hard to choose a school that will at least tolerate more conservative kids, but he definitely has already ruled out any schools that are actively antagonistic towards the military, or conservatives.  My 16-yo who is maybe fiscally conservative, and socially moderate, has already decided to go to a CC, then she's not sure she wants to go to a 4-yr school at all.  She may end up doing one of the Big 3 at that point.  She just does not want any part of the "college experience" that she sees, and doesn't want to be around crazy people (she saw a lot of the BLM/Antifa/Anti-Free Speech stuff at Berkeley).  If they're only 14 & 16 and have figured this out, you might see why fewer conservative kids want to go to college.  Why go somewhere you're not wanted?

I am very much against safe spaces. My security studies program had mostly current and former military members who were conservative. Was I often in the minority during debates? I sure was. My philosophy is that you're likely not going to get anywhere in life being afraid of being in the minority and facing pushback. 

I apologize if it sounds cold that I don't have any sympathy for your kids, but there were black students who were brave enough to be the first to integrate schools while having things thrown at them and being called all kinds of names. If it weren't for the bravery of those kids, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere. So, when I hear people afraid to go to a school because of their political leanings, all I can imagine is weak-mindedness. Many of our conservative politicians went to top schools that are mostly liberal. No one killed them or assaulted them, and they had social lives.

There have been students who have been kicked out of schools for being gay (University of the Cumberlands). IIRC, the student revealed this on social media and didn't mention it in school. This is when you, literally, have to keep your mouth shut. If someone has a story about someone being kicked out for being conservative, please share. I found one case involving Rhode Island College in which a student had difficulty getting through a program. The other cases were students justifying discrimination with religious views and going against their profession's code of ethics.

[cookderosa]

When I was studying my MBA, my husband joked that they had teaching manuals for how to be a republican.    While I still consider myself a bleeding heart liberal, I will say that b-school definitely made me slightly more fiscally conservative.

Here are a couple of articles on how colleges affect (or don't affect) students' ideological views. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014...al-college

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opini...beral.html

If this isn't a duh moment...

Their research found that the tendency of college graduates to be more liberal reflects to a large extent the fact that more liberal students are more likely to go to college in the first place.

It's stunning that universities aren't attempting to incorporate more republicans in their diversity efforts. As few as 12% of Harvard undergrads identify as conservative and a similar number of professors identify as such. The whole point of college is to learn critical thinking skills and challenge pre-conceived notions. Turning universities into echo chambers for either side doesn't appear like a good long term strategy.

Maybe we need a kind of political affirmative action to even out the political distribution represented by the student body and teaching staff to closer reflect the demographics of our country.

[dfrecore]

Not certain why my post just quoted previous posts and left out my response entirely. That's happened a few times on this forum, and it only started happening on the new platform - I never had a problem on the old one.

Anyway, Sanantone, what I said was that I was not asking for sympathy, nor was I saying that my kids were in any way afraid of pushback. I was just giving perspective on why some conservative students may not want to go the traditional route.

My daughter does not want to argue with anyone ever - not her personality to do so. She wants to quietly live a nice peaceful life. When she sees the Antifa antics on the Berkeley campus, it's a major turnoff for her. She sees it as a problem with college campuses in general, and not something she wants to be around. Again, it's her personality type. There is no fear there.

My son would argue with anyone over anything, so he would actually relish a fight like that. He'd be right up in the mix there. But, he wants to go to college on an ROTC scholarship, and realizes that he needs to keep his nose clean and worry about his grades, not political action. He can't afford to antagonize his instructors or get into trouble. So, that leaves him with fewer options than the average student.

Again, I don't want sympathy, nor are my kids afraid. It's just perspective on what some kids are looking at when deciding if they should go to college, and if so, where they might go.

[burbuja0512]

I think it's challenging to change anything regarding ideology. The younger you are, the more likely you are to be liberal, and with the makeup of the country changing, this is probably even more true today than it was when I was younger.

The real issue that CAN be fixed is teaching professors how to encourage healthy debate. But then again, as a country, we aren't a great example. How can we expect our kids to do something that most adults aren't doing? I really do remember healthy debate in high school back in the early 90's. Yes it got heated, but we all learned from each other and knew how to do it the right way. I don't want to say "things were better back then," but our ability to be sensitive to opposing viewpoints and learn from each other has DEFINITELY gone downhill. Both sides are extremely guilty and it would be wonderful if universities could be part of a change back to the days when we could respect each other and sincerely agree to disagree, after carefully considering the other's perspective.

[StoicJ]

Holy crap, sanantone.

[eriehiker]

I think that it is kind of ridiculous to see reports about an antifa demonstration on a campus and extrapolate that the group's positions are in any way representative of the campus, professors and or students on the campus or prevailing thought at a school. A protest is just a bunch of people getting together. I actually belonged to both the Republican and Democratic parties when I was a student at the University of Michigan and attended both Young Republicans and Young Democrats meetings and there was zero discrimination on that campus towards either of those groups.

People also have to realize that Republicans have demonized pretty much anything to do with education during the past thirty years. Educational attainment is now a characteristic that determines party identification. It just makes sense that there would naturally be more Democrats on a college campus. That doesn't mean any discrimination is going on.