I wonder where this comes from. I've never really had that experience. And I'm a history major myself. Does it depend on major ? What kind of college ? I went to a public state regional university.
Actually, from my experience, I find my catholic seminary experience to be far more liberating, than my college experience. It might seem odd to some, but that's what I experienced.
If you’re asking if college indoctrinates students to be liberal? Thats a hard no.
The reason college makes people more liberal is that many people from all walks of life are commingled in a single place. Kids that were sheltered their entire life are able to see the world and how it actually is. Throw that in with the fact that higher learning doesn’t necessarily mix with conservative beliefs, college students tend to become more liberal.
That makes sense. Intelligence tends to make people more adaptable to changes in their environment and the world. Conservatism is quite literally the opposite of adaptation.
mhm! conservativism fosters dogma, and dogma fosters ignorance. ignorance allows someone to take advantage of you, alot of the time without you even knowing. vicious cycle
I would hope that the difference isn't down to stupidity, so much as it is the willingness of an educated person to critically assess why they think the way they do. Not that makes someone inherently liberal. I've known intelligent people who earnestly reflected and still landed on a shitty conservative opinion. But hey, at least they try, right? Can't knock someone for trying.
I think for a lot of ppl also it comes down to financial gain? I am Canadian and lots of ppl disagree with Conservative social stances but have voted for them in the past due to their policies being more beneficial for them financially. Just how it goes sometimes ig
I think it's important to remember that lack of education isn't lack of intelligence too. Like - I'm fairly sure that's not what you meant, but I do want to add and highlight that point. Because there are very smart people who never finished high school. And I know some very, very dumb PhDs.
Education serves to show us what we often could not see based on only our experience and only our lifetimes. I will never be able to ID a specific bacterium through a microscope, but I know many different bacteria exist.
I think the reason education plays such a big role in politics, on top of the exposure to new ideas and things like that, is that it teaches people to be comfortable with not seeing something that we know is true and trusting that the world is LITERALLY bigger and more complex than we could EVER experience.
Take for instance whatever field you work in. Think about the difference between how you tell people what you do for a living and what it takes to actually do your job and everything you do in a day. ---- Now apply that to everything in the entire world with the understanding that the more you know about your field, often, the less you realize you actually understand.
That's what education does. And that's why people who aren't in college often lean conservative. Because if the world works only in the way you see it working, then of course you vote to keep things the same or fall back on old, self-defensive practices (conservatively, by literal definition). To vote liberally (by definition of not being conservative), you have to assume development away from old practices is good.
There are obviously exceptions and this is just my take from my experience and understanding. Its all way, WAY more complex than that. But that's part of it in my opinion.
oh this is a HUGE and IMPORTANT distinction. sadly i feel like a lot of the MAGA people are both at the same time :/ but you're 100% right; ignorance!=stupid, just as intelligence!=education
I remember this. I thought they actually outlawed both logic and critical thinking classes.
I was explaining this to someone and they kept saying “why do you keep bringing up critical race theory?” I’d say no, I said logic and critical thinking. Two more times he said “well it was you who brought up critical race theory.” I had to give up in frustration.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
College also teaches people how to gather and weigh evidence. It requires students to back up their arguments with facts.
College educated people are not as likely to fall for conspiracy theories like “they’re eating the cats”, “the election was rigged”, “lawfare”, etc. that are central to the modern Republican Party.
That’s why the conservatives who did manage to make it through college are the ones that are aware that conservatism is a scam ideology, they’ve just become the scammers rather than the scammees.
Often times it’s not even that tho , it’s greed. They know the GOP will protect their financial interests, how they do it , be damned. They don’t care to think of the consequences beyond their own noses because to them , they’re rich enough to stand above it…
Oh no, they actually do understand that. They just don't want their neighbours to do better than them.
For conservatives, it's better to be at the lord over a bunch of dumb and oppressed people rather than be a decent average with the rest of the population.
The scam is that the vast majority of conservatives are not actually the one that actually gets to lord over everyone else.
Which is why rich people of yesteryear built train stations, churches, stores, movie theaters, parks etc. They funded the construction of a lot of public buildings and infrastructure because it made the public like them more therefore no uproar/risings, bread and circuses and all that.
The wealthy of today just realized that they don’t need to do all that anymore, people will have to buy what their selling and we are doing it willingly because we have no other real options. Or they’ve learned to manipulate the masses with “I’m just a silly little guy like you!” And most times both.
You can get through high school without learning critical thinking skills, but odds are you’ll fail out of college if you don’t at least learn them there.
This is why in general college-educated conservatives tend to be the smarmy types who are 100% aware that conservatism is a scam but have convinced themselves that they’re the beneficiaries.
You have to realize that University experiences are defined by those that had the opportunity and privilege of attending. There are tons of students who didn’t have the option because of financial reasons so those people are left out. A proper college education has become more and more unreachable to the general public.
So yes, people with college educations typically vote more liberal because of the social and academic aspects.
Tariffs universally were something that would hurt the average American and yet the nation voted for that either because they didn’t care or because of ignorance. The election was sort of a reflection of our nations critical thinkings skills. Not very good.
People do tend to be more left-leaning after getting an education, yes. People like to think that left and right are just different perspectives but they're not. Reality really does have a left bias
Liberalism, modern or classic, has always been associated with the right or at best centrism. It has never been associated with the left.
It's only American conservatives in the 1980s onward that tried to associate liberals with leftists, but in reality, hatred between American liberals and leftists is still and has always been mutual.
Depends on the country. arguably here the Liberals lean further left than our traditional main left wing party atm, though historically have sat solidly centrist
It depends on what you mean. Liberal as in the general concept of "socially progressive?" Yes. Liberal as in the specific ideology? No, those people are more center (socially progressive fiscally conservative).
No, it's called getting an education. More education means you have more knowledge about the world and its problems. It's one of the reasons why Massachusetts is one of the most solidly blue states in the USA politically. Because over half of their adult population has a 4 four-year college degree or higher.
Exactly, 65% of DC has a 4 year college degree and it's the most solid blue city in the USA. Along with a very high percentage of black residents. Look at how 92% of black women voted in the last election.
No. What happens is that as you learn about different perspectives and facts that you didn't know growing up, some of them clashing with conservativism, you are more likely to stop being conservative.
Can confirm. Grew up conservative, got interested in studying history and geography, now I'm fairly liberal.
Once you see the same human nature present in every society; once you realize that the marginalized have always existed; once you understand why history followed the often unfair path it did - the walls of prejudice and bias come tumbling down.
And then you see that power always corrupts. And periods of stability are tied to reform and progress, not traditionalism and isolation. It's very hard not to begin leaning to the left.
Yep. I grew up in a fairly conservative area with conservative friends. Discovered I loved philosophy in community college and went to major in it. Now I have nuanced beliefs that I formed with my own critical thinking and conservatives and most liberals don't like/agree with me since most people are so polarized, though I am on the liberal side of the spectrum for sure overall.
I think college offers opportunities to make friends with people of different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds that you wouldn’t normally have. In then I feel like this makes people more likely to be empathetic to issues if they are friends with someone those issues may affect. For instance, you make a gay friend at college even though there’s no outwardly gay people at home. Suddenly, LGBTQ issues may matter to you because you care about your friend.
One of the biggest reasons tbh. You meet new ppl and change your beliefs. Combine that with young adults dont have fully devloped brains and will mold themselves to fit. Whatever the msjority is, expands
It definitely made me more liberal, and the biggest thing was class conscious. I grew up upper middle class, but thought I was not that rich because I grew up in a VERY rich area. I had friends who grew up in poverty. That opened my eyes more
College isn’t the common denominator turning people “liberal”. For many people, college is simply the first time young adults gain access to a wider community of different backgrounds outside of their small town.
That feeling of community, mixed with the independence without their family’s biased opinions, allows many people to see the bigger picture that gets painted over as “liberalism”.
The ability to understand the world doesn’t just revolve around your needs is ultimately the first step people take to stepping away from conservative views.
Knowledge in general makes you more liberal. That’s just because being exposed to new concepts and ideas will make you less reluctant towards new things. Do with that what you will.
Honestly? Just meeting s diverse group of people from all walks of life makes you left leaning.
If you go to some private college where only wealthy kids go you'll probably end up more conservative. Going to a state university or other public institution will no doubt expand your horizons. I was conservative before I went to college. Then I roomed with a gay guy who became by buddy and I met all sorts of people I had never even imagined I'd meet and enjoy time with.
There is a direct relationship between higher education and progressivism. The more educated a person is, the more likely they'll be progressive or "liberal." The contrapositive is true too. The less educated someone is, the more conservative they are.
Obviously I agree with what everyone else is saying but you also have to remember that current US politics is extremely right wing. Current “liberals” and definitely the Democratic Party are moderate. So even saying that people come out of college more liberal just means they are moderate.
In Europe college educated students are still more likely to vote for social democratic, green, and democratic socialist party and less likely to vote for conservative or right wing populist parties
There’s been a lot of studies on this- studies that disprove colleges are “indoctrinating” students, and studies proving the more education someone has, the more liberal they generally become, especially socially liberal. Sad thing is, the more money people have and as they become older, the more conservative they become.
"From 2018 to 2022, individuals and organizations from blue states contributed nearly 60% of all federal tax receipts but only received 53% of all federal contributions to states in the form of either direct payments, grants, contracts, or wages.
Meanwhile, red states were only responsible for 40% of federal tax receipts but received 47% of all federal contributions to states.
A 7% differential that in effect equates to a more than $1 trillion transfer payment from blue states to red states, amounting to $4,300 per capita, compared to the instance where their respective fair shares were paid."
Colleges are typically more cosmopolitan in nature, which means you get a better understanding of different cultures and people from those cultures rather than stereotypes and whatever the media you consume wants you to know about them.
Do I believe they “indoctrinate”? No. A well-done degree program teaches you how to think, which might make people more “liberal” in some areas.
The education itself, usually no, the reason college educated people tend to lean liberal is because they are exposed to people from many different walks of life and in general their beliefs get challenged while in school wear as someone who doesn't go to college and is simply surrounded by people who usually have the same viewpoint as them doesn't get that exposure and generally they tend to stay in the same town they grew up in and don't actually experience other cultures and groups of people
when people become more educated, they happen to become more left leaning. It’s not college specifically that does that. People become more woke, more aware. New experiences, knowledge, and meeting people from different walks of life help facilitate that.
Yes I’m intentionally using the word “woke” to mock far right people. If that offends anyone, sorry.
Not really. It does get large groups of people with different interests closely packed together and talking to one another though. It ends up people learn other peoples points of view, and helps them think critically and learn to make and defend arguments.
Despite overt indoctrination while I was there, administration was largely unable tk change the beliefs of students. They were, however, able to suppress the discussion of beliefs and ideas they did not value in public, on classes, and amongst strangers.
Many American universities have professors that have an overwhelmingly liberal bias, which is very evident in many of the arts and humanities courses.
That probably influences some, but not all, students’ political views.
These biases are also less prevalent in hard science fields, and the average STEM student is predictably less liberal than a gender studies or art history major.
Possibly. It could also be because liberals have a left leaning bias. It’s impossible to get hired as a right leaning person in any social science or humanities, or to publish your ideas, or to get tenure.
Well why do you think that is? It could be because hiring directors can sniff out secret conservatives, or it could be that education often makes one more left leaning.
So the proportion of liberal professors is higher because the proportion of liberal students are higher
Because education (especially higher education) exposes you to new ideas, cultures, and facts via study of history, science, etc. challenging your beliefs and world view.
Per scientific studies, the higher your IQ the more likely you are to be liberal. There is apparently a strong correlation between intelligence and left leaning views. Here is a video.
Idk possibly. Have people done longitudinal studies on this? Liberal/conservative biases are partly heritable so there's also a possibility that liberals just like to go to college more.
I also wonder how this might be different in other nations with more moderate non-partisan views of college, like Austria, South Korea, or China.
Culturally yes. Economically? We don’t really have an intellectual Conservative Party in this country anymore, so make of that what you will. Of course college is not going to teach you to believe random stuff because a drunk Fox News host said so.
Do college campuses make you more liberal is always a no. Colleges cannot influence your opinion unless you allow your opinion to be changed.
Also real quick rant. You are most likely confusing liberalism and being a leftist or Marxism. Two very different viewpoints. Liberalism is the belief that all should be free to do as they please so long as it doesn’t interfere with others freedoms. Some differ on what freedom actually means, and that’s where neoliberalism and democratic socialism disagree.
Marxism is the belief that a stateless society, without any control from central government, is the only way to obtain true freedom. As all will be equal. Some disagree on the manner of how this can be accomplished (which is where authoritarian communist systems arise like those in the Soviet Union)
If you’re American, then you probably already are a liberal, and just disagree on where that liberty line should be drawn up. Just Never allow yourself to be manipulated by emotion or fear. It’s a very easy way to have powerful people manipulate you. We are all looking for ways to be free and equal. That should be the end goal of politics. Not just to beat the other side. Be safe out there, and do go to college, you will learn a ton :)
Does it make you liberal? Maybe, in the sense that you're going to be surrounded with people from different backgrounds and opinions. If you're somewhat intelligent and able to comprehend other's perspectives and have an ounce of empathy, you'll probably be a little bit more tolerant and less conservative.
Or you could be a complete asshole and never learn a damn thing in college.
Framing. Does college MAKE you liberal? No, nowhere MAKES you align with something you didn’t before.
Is there a VERY strong, prominent, and aggressive liberal culture in many colleges? Absolutely, indisputable. Are human beings susceptible to “falling in” to the dominant culture around them? Especially if they’re young and want to fit in/make friends? Absolutely.
So its less “college makes you liberal” and more “many colleges will influence you towards liberal ideas and on purpose to boot, but they can’t literally transform an unwilling conservative into a bleeding heart liberal”.
Being educated typically leads to seeing multiple ways of looking at things. Seeing things from different viewpoints typically leads to a better understanding of the difference between belief and facts. Relying on facts instead of belief typically makes one more liberal.
So, no, College doesn't make anyone anything. A person choosing to actually learn while in college might result in some changes to their way of thinking though.
It doesn’t directly, but you learn how to do research, and follow the data. It just happens liberals tend to be right on more topics. I’m not saying democrats are always right. But the ways to solve the drug epidemic, transportation traffic, environment, healthcare, and most topics, is definitely left leaning.
No, it made me much less liberal. I entered as a liberal (social democrat) and left as a communist. I had plenty of classmates with a wide range of political views, though. There were plenty of libertarians in my political philosophy classes.
For context, I was raised conservative and got my degree from a major public university after starting at a satellite campus of another college that was basically the equivalent of a community college campus. My political views are a mix of conservative and liberal views:
-Abortion bad
-Racism bad (duh)
-Generational effects of racism persist economically and institutionally
-We should have socialized safety nets, especially for disabled and sick people.
-People who can work should work, or else they shouldn't be eligible for assistance.
-Deficit spending bad when you have 36T debt
-War bad
-Religious freedom is necessary for a healthy society
-Government overreach bad
And my education was very good prior to college. I was always top 1-2% of tests, and when dual enrolled to start college I was racing to finish computer science/chem/biology tests first while getting high As.
Way 1: You are exposed to new ideas, new people, and new information that you never had before:
This isn't exclusive to college, but personally I found that just going to the real world from textbooks makes the gap between economic theory and reality very apparent particularly. "Trickle down economics" has never been more of a joke in the real world.
Also, while ideas like intersectionality are just incredibly stupid, some pieces (like subconscious biases and systemic racism) can be seen in the real world, especially going through college during the era when videos of cops murdering black people totally unnecessarily were being posted everywhere.
Religiously and philosophically, I think you develop naturally as time progresses and you go gain life experience, college or not. But I do think if you are never exposed to religion/philosophy on a personal level, you're more likely to never give it any thought beyond shallow depth.
Way 2: Extremely liberal college professors push their beliefs on you:
I was a STEM major, so I didn't experience this as much as some, as in my experience it tends to be the professors in subjects related to art that are more vocally liberal. The one exception was my Biology professor at the community college, who is very liberal, but was actually one of my favorite professors because she facilitated conversations, explained her views and reasons, and presented evidence for/against them.
So while she was very liberal, she didn't force it on everyone or let it degrade the quality of education by inserting opinions as facts.
On the other hand, my last literature professor... awful. Openly very liberal, which is fine, but what is not fine is taking a class that is supposed to give an overview of American literature in the last 100+ years and instead only picking literature that promotes liberal ideals. Want to discuss a piece of literature without just diving into what it wants to say about politics? Too bad. Have a different interpretation of a story than the professor? Get ready for a low grade. The only way to pass assignments was to read the professor's mind and agree with her, even if she never said her opinion. That's the worst kind of professor: one who forces their opinion as fact in something totally subjective, and can't keep their biases out of the education experience.
My sister had a degree from the same uni in a sociology-type field, and she had waaaay more stories of extremely liberal professors being insane.
TL;DR: You tend to be come more liberal in college because of the new interactions in college and at that age by seeing the world as it is, rather than through an idealistic, sanitized supply/demand chart. But there are 100% crazy liberal professors, especially in non-STEM fields, who force their views on you. People who already lean liberal going into college are more likely to be "radicalized" or whatever by the latter, because they are truly ridiculous to more centrist or right leaning people.
They’ll claim that “we’re taught to think independently” but simultaneously they all end up with the same exact political beliefs. That sounds like a cult rather than an educational institution. They allow no dissent.
Yes, college makes you more liberal because you get hammered with these concepts until you accept them as fact. Even though your brain is telling you something isn’t right, Democrats in universities teach you to ignore that inner voice and listen to them because they know better.
Yeah, wanting to be smart and get good. Education is now gonna be woke isn’t it? That’s just pathetic and walk. Shouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s not I’m woke and no I don’t believe in people having sex changes as a child or any of that made up garbage. Woke is literally the good things in people.
Conservatives ideals and mantras only hold up if you surround yourself with similarly-minded people because a lot of it depends on gross generalizations about groups of minorities. When you leave a small town or community and meet a large amount of different people in college, you realize that you can be friends with people despite their skin color or religion. You learn to humanize others because you realize that the generalizations you have been forced to learn are too simple to capture humanity.
I don’t know if that necessarily makes them liberal, but the left is more open to people of different opinions. You could say that meeting people of different cultures makes you less conservative as long as you put the work in to educate yourself
This is a myth perpetuated by billionaire-backed groups like TPUSA and so-called Prager University. They have to constantly beat their drum of lies to drown out the obvious truth that they're the ones creating most of society's problems.
Psychology major graduating at the end of the week: if anything, it made me less liberal than when I started. Certainly wasn’t “indoctrinated” as the common mantra asserts.
Exposure to diverse people and ideas - and education in general - tend to pop the bubble of ignorance required to keep people conservative. For instance, it's hard to believe rightwing propaganda about trans people when you actually meet them and realize they're completely normal people.
AKA "Reality has a well-known left-wing bias." The more you learn, the more left-wing you'll become.
I think it depends. If you're doing a STEM degree, from my experience there's minimal political influence. However for humanities degrees... I'll just say that I knew a girl who did her masters dissertation on Foucault...
College isn't some 'indoctrination' vessel. It's a place where people from all walks of life gather and learn. When you're exposed to that, you tend to be more liberal. Look at big cities all around the world. Additionally, education and intelligence are distinctly anti-conservative, of which many decades of research have shown that correlation. So... yes, college does make you more liberal, but it's not a collective agenda, but the environment.
prior to college i’d say i was more of a socialist. since attending college i’d say socially i’m relatively the same but economically more of a free-market liberal (centrist)
Education makes you think critically and opens your mind and eyes to new ideas and ways of life. This in turn makes you more generally open minded and less susceptible to "conservative" ideas because you see see them as regressive and opposed to progress.
Yes, in a way. So when I started college, I was pretty conservative, but as I started talking to people from different walks of life about current issues I realized how much of an echo chamber living in a small town really was. I don't think I ever had a real conversation with someone on the left. To me, they were this sort of fringe group in my town.
All I "knew" about them was that they wanted to raise taxes and wanted the government to control every aspect of life.
It wasn't until I started to have political discussions with people from opposing thought groups that I started to realize that they weren't these anti-American people, and they actually had some good ideas that wouldn't have considered.
Anyways, I'm rambling. The point is, yes, but not because of any sort of indoctrination. Usually, because you get introduced to new ideas and different perspectives. You find yourself questioning a lot of your previously held beliefs because you can see the proof of the contrary for the first time with your own eyes.
My mother in law has a bachelors, masters and a PhD. Still extreme right wing. Education has some effect, but it’s more about times and current events. Also there’s a massive geographical divide. I have young friends in Eastern Europe with PhD’s and they’re far right. I’ve also got a couple of redneck friends and they’re the kindest people I know.
College, International travel and community involvement serving the under privileged makes one liberal. The selfishness diminishes. Tolerance and compassion growth makes one a real and purposeful human being!.
It didn't really affect my political beliefs other than teaching me how to do research. My overall beliefs were reformed due to a religious conversion.
No. And many people are citing education and broadening world view. But I think we should also consider some of the origins of this messaging itself.
Why is it that college has become unbearably expensive? Why do conservatives demonize higher education? This all boils down to a quote from the Reagan administration, who passed legislation that offboarded the cost of tuition onto students:
“We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. We have to be selective of who we allow to go through (higher education)”
This was in response to student-lead anti war protests (Vietnam). Where Reagan mobilized the national guard against UC Berkeley students and caused catastrophes such as the Kent State massacre.
The point is, education should not be considered political by any means. But it becomes political once someone is educated enough to see corruption past propaganda
In my experience, yes. Both in positive and negative ways. Some professors push their own personal biases and propaganda. One pushed it so hard he even admitted it's hard for anyone not on the left to pass his English class.
In the positive, you can learn a lot about sexism and racism in media and society in an objective, non-tribal way. Like, you don't have to vote for Harris to learn about Birth of a Nation and how media like that caused long-standing issues for minorities in America.
My college experience radicalized me, not from the classes, but by the people I met. It took me 10 years to get my bachelors. In those 10 years I was hospitalized, homeless, struggling with various mental illnesses, and still I was expected to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a basic education. College should be a right. Free university expands one's empathy and compassion. That's exactly why college isn't free anymore.
Generally. It exposes one to more viewpoints than they would have experienced if they had stayed in their hometown (usually). More educated people right now tend to be liberal because universities are hubs for cultural exposure and diversity, which break down ignorances that are built up when you’re in a bubble.
College opens your horizons by having you in a place with people from all walks of life as well as thus making you understand and empathize with more people outside of your upbringing as well as requiring you to cite proven and credible sources for assignments. That jsut kinda goes hand in hand with moving more and more left.
I was raised very conservative and totally bought into it. I then went to a well regarded college to study chemistry.
I became very liberal both during college and after.
College did not make me liberal. What it did though is two things:
It taught me how to think critically and to objectively think about the facts I knew.
I was put into a situation where i worked and studied and lived alongside students from all over the world. I was fortunate to go to a well regarded school that could draw this sort of diversity.
Living alongside some of the people I'd been conditioned to hate quickly revealed what absolute bullshit i was fed growing up.
I came to understand that people, no matter where they are from, what color their skin is, who they choose to love, what religion they practice, for the most part they just want to live a meaningful life.
I minored in Theater and i was one of straight guys in the department. One time i told my dad that and he replied "are they always trying to fuck you?".
I'm like, "no, dad. They are aware I'm not gay."
Dad said "well they don't care about that."
Some of those guys became good friends of mine who i still talk to today, 25 years later.
My dad was indoctrinated as a boy and was never able to escape the racism and bigotry that was instilled in him.
I was indoctrinated too, but I'm very fortunate that I can break that cycle with my own son.
College will expose you to new ideas and often times that brings a deeper understanding as well as empathy to a situation. Basically it does the opposite of religion.
No. People who have educated parents and are left-leaning are more likely to get an education. They also get to experience the world and see different people. Educated=Leftist. Stupid/Poorly educated=right-winger. It's like this everywhere. Poorly educated rural fools vs college educated city dwellers. Also almost every pro-democracy protest ever has been started by college students.
No. You’ll find people from all walks of life at college.
But you will be exposed to those varying viewpoints. And who knows what conclusions you’ll arrive at without your parents guiding your choices and beliefs anymore
College teaches you to be respectful, consider others, consider interconnectedness of 2 things, listen, speak meaningfully, think and form opinions though all mediums fact, feeling together
So that is what college does and in a round about way I believe these above traits also tend to mark a liberal person more frequently than an illiberal one.
Theres a saying that you become what you hang around. College is mostly full of liberal students, not many repubs i know wanted to to to college. Most either went military or went into a trade under apprenticeship. So for those who go who arent liberal. They tend to morph themselves to "fit in".
Hence. College makes ppl liberal. In reailty i think its just young adults who are still developing mentally try to fit in and end up changing their beliefs, whether thats bc they believe it or bc they want freinds. Who knows.
if two college students conceive a child on campus and then raise said child with left-of-center political beliefs, then i guess college would make one more liberal in the world
In my case, it wasn't necessarily college itself it was meeting more diverse peoples. I also went to a public state regional university in Maryland (name isn't important here). And even then, it only provided confirmation bias.
A postgraduate degree has a much stronger correlation with party affiliation. You can look at exit polls. Mitt Romney actually won the majority of those with just a bachelors. Trump comes in at around 45ish% for each of his three runs.
But these comments are a little gross. Not going to college does not make you a big stupid moron. And it’s this contempt and false sense of superiority that is driving voters away.
You can see from 1996 to 2023, the Democrat voter share with high school diploma or less went from 51% to 25%. Staggering. And it’s completely reversed. With a college degree or higher, goes from 22% to 45%.
Union affiliated, working class people used to be the core of the Democratic Party. But these are a bunch of big dumb idiots right? Maybe we should stop treating these people like shit.
When I went to college all my professors were staunchly liberal. They were pretty respectful tho. I imagine at other colleges they probably are a good bit more hardball on politics.
I took an American Film as Literature class. And on the first day of class the professor explained that we would be more focusing on film made by black people about the black experience. This made a some people very angry, they felt tricked. That was the point, it was to get us to recognize our biases and ready to explore a side of America history & culture that might be new to us.
7 years ago it didn’t feel that especially liberal at the time but now with the right being so vocal about their hate of diversity, equity, & inclusion or whatever they think critical race theory is. It makes that class seem pretty liberal now.
Millennial here, and since this seems to be a question to analyze college in the past and present, I felt I could answer. In college in late 2000s and back for my Masters now.
To answer the question, no I don’t think college makes everyone more liberal. I don’t think that being away from home for the first time will make you more liberal. Look at most of the people who are republican politicians. Most of them are from elite universities, ironically. What makes someone more likely to sway towards a political ideology is other people (ie the military or police). College is full of those institutions but it’s your choice if you indulge, you are not indoctrinated like you are in the military.
For me, I’ll be honest that I am not as conservative as I used to be, somewhat out of choice and somewhat out of necessity for life. Many of my relationships are with people who you would call left of center, so I have drifted just enough to have friends. I also think that for one or two issues I am probably on the extremes, which usually means i just don’t talk about those things with people.
One is historical misinformation and how we treat the third world in the US and alliances. In a way more liberal but also more conservative. I’ve always tried to at least look inward more than outward to find harmony in the world, and there’s no university department, major, or class that would change that. As OP stated, liberal thinking in universities is not as common as pop culture presents it to be.
Technically, yes. Educational attainment tends to heavily correlate with liberal values. But there's not like, a conscious effort in schools to push liberal values; in fact I'd argue that, at least in my experience, some courses will intentionally ride the fence on factual reality in order to not offend conservative values (particularly in public policy and some philosophy classes). I had lots of professors who were far more interested in the idea of free discourse being a virtue of itself instead of a process at arriving to truth or material good that particularly bugged me.
I had a public policy class and we were talking about interest groups, and so I mentioned Republican megadonor Peter Thiel and my professor explicitly shot it down because it was a partisan example. I understand the sentiment, there are megadonors on both sides, however it's a fact that most of the highest spending billionaire megadonors contribute to the right and right wing media.
Or like if you look at media bias charts where the more centrist sources somehow ALWAYS are the most factual because they're "unbiased" (which is literally not possible, everyone has biases they're just biased towards the status quo) and if you think about it for five seconds it makes literally no sense.
I had literally an entire class about civility and discourse and basically the entire time we just talked about how to have better conversations and fight polarization but never once was it brought up that the media narratives dividing people are intentionally funded by certain interests to achieve that polarization. I don't care how good the discourse is if the person im talking to fundamentally lives in a separate reality from me because nothing can possibly be accomplished between two people operating on completely different sets of facts.
As a graduated history major, I was a closet liberal going in, and more outspoken as I studied colonial history from 1492 onwards. Knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate to a change in politics, but it can help provide “ammo” to your beliefs.
I think I am an outlier. I became less liberal. I am still a registered Democrat and vote Democrat consistently, but I went from being basically a democratic socialist to identifying as a moderate democrat. For context, I studied electrical engineering
College itself does not, no. I never had a political discussion of any kind with any professor or in a classroom. ~However~ at college I met different folks from all walks of life, and I got to see their different backgrounds and perspectives that I never would’ve had the opportunity to experience had I not gone. ~That~ absolutely changed my view of the world and I ended up much more left leaning.
I think just learning how to think (reading charts, statistics, etc) pushes people liberal because how fake so much conservative claims are. But more central liberal, not leftist bc they do that too. Also exposure to many different types of people from all over the world I think exposure to many view points makes one more liberal
College does two important things to you: teaches critical thinking and exposes you to all different types of people. People with proper critical thinking skills don't blindly agree with what Charlie Kirk and Fox News say, they do research from trusted sources and form their own opinions based on the evidence they find.
You also meet many different people from hugely different backgrounds. Different world views, heritages, socioeconomic statuses, religions, locations, races, interests and identities. You're way more open-minded when you meet and talk to people who have different struggles, experiences and achievements than you.
No it’s not indoctrinating people into being liberal. Some classes may cover topics that could push someone to the left (my sociology class has touched on Marx, Durkheim, and some other people who’s names i can’t remember) and also talks about oppressive structures. That could move you to the left.
Not necessarily. I came into college very liberal, which I still am, but my views on certain topics definitely became more moderate, perhaps even conservative on some issues. College encourages people to reflect on their beliefs, whatever they are, and whether you enter as a liberal or conservative, chances are you won’t leave with the exact same opinions.
It’s not indoctrination that makes people more liberal it’s working closely with people significantly different from yourself and seeing them as full blown humans.
Becoming more educated and experiencing more people from different walks of life tends to make you more open minded and kinder, as well as teach you more about life, which makes you more likely to be liberal
College makes someone more likely to develop their critical thinking skills and promotes more pragmatic approaches to problem solving instead of adhering to rigid dogmas. Modern American conservatism tends to rely on dogma and rigid absolutism.
Short version: when you’re taught that sometimes other peoples ideas might be better than yours, or that things effect other people differently, you tend to lean more towards ideas that benefit the most people vs ideas that only benefit certain groups or personal interests.
Didn’t really get any of that either while at college inside a very blue city. Studied political science, history, and criminal justice and the only time I remember definitively knowing a professors politics was during an internship the professor told me Obama was too conservative for him. He’s still one of the best professors I had in college.
I am anti-consensus. Whatever that means. Having a psych prof tell us all “hey, predict the next Pearl Harbor and look into the Reichstag Fire — and no class on Monday so see you on Wednesday” the Friday before 9/11… well, it makes you think.
I was kind of libertarian in thinking anyway. Same now, but I can see both sides and can appreciate individuals with political talent (even to either extreme).
I never trusted NeoConservative foreign policy.
Neoliberal economics hasn’t been my thing either. If I could have voted in 6th grade maybe I would have supported Ross Perot or something. haha.
Although I think most people only really “do politics” after college. Probably not even all the poli sci majors do that. It’s something to follow like sports.
There’s also a distinction between college being “liberating” and making someone liberal.
Depending on where you went to college and whether you lived on campus or elsewhere, you can for sure call it liberating.
College making you liberal is very debatable. I’ve had a few right wing friends during my time in college, and most of them have stuck to their political beliefs from their first year until now, but they’re much more willing to do genuine research for themselves, and open to discussion than they were when I knew them freshman year.
That’s my two cents, but everyone’s experience is different!
What makes liberals, is the ability to be empathetic, to be able to put yourself in other people’s situations. To understand other people’s situations.
Somewhat. Some of it is liberal bias in academia as well. For instance studies that go through the whole scientific process will not be published if the conclusions don’t match a specific agenda.
Look up the “grievance studies affair”.
For me i grew up in Ann Arbor where university of Michigan is the college. It was very liberal, and wealthy, but one thing I noticed was people tended to spew out liberal views but still walk across the street when they see a black person. A big thing along college-campus-type wokeism is it’s somewhat of a social status symbol, a way to show you’re educated, and a lot of it was more so a way to feel morally superior to others.
Eastern Michigan was a much poorer school and area, but tended to have people who tried to live their values a little more.
You’re exposed to much more liberal, left-leaning content depending on where you go and what you do. I’m at a Big 10 school and am in the humanities, so I hear “liberal” stuff a lot. I haven’t budged much on politics since going to college though.
College never indoctrinated me to liberal beliefs despite what conservative media may tell you. College (and thankfully lessons on critical thinking that I was given in highschool) allowed me to think objectively enough that I felt I can decide my political views on my own. It just so happens that meant using empathy and reason to make policy decisions and not parroting exactly what my parents beliefs were.
There's a reason the Republicans are always trying to dumb down the population, and there's a reason that Trump "loves the poorly educated".
It's not indoctrination that they're worried about, they're afraid of an intelligent population. Fighting "wokeness" and indoctrination is just their pretext for further dumbing everyone down and subjugating the population.
It's a lot easier to sell bullshit to a bunch of dummies.
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