Political Leanings by Occupation and Industry

[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?