Survey: More College Freshmen Identify as 'Conservative'

Steve Jordahl ^ | April 15, 2003

[new cruelty]

A UCLA survey shows more college freshmen consider themselves conservative. But there's still a long way to go.

University of New Hampshire senior Jon Getbehead walks right past the hamburgers to the deli bar. His bent for eating health food is almost all that's left of his liberal upbringing. For most of his college career he has been a lone conservative voice on a very liberal campus, but that suits him fine.

"There was no better surrounding to grow in my relationship with Christ than to be in an atmosphere which is the real world," Getbehead said.

Perhaps because he was such a rare breed, Getbehead says the majority of the student body tolerated his views.

"My resident director was very excited for the fact that I held a different view than any other people on staff, because I was the only Christian," he said.

According to the annual survey, conducted by the UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, conservative voices are becoming more popular on campus. Those identifying themselves as "conservative" rose from 19.1 percent in 2001 to 20 percent in 2002. Rick Parsons, of the Young America's Foundation, said the logic is overwhelming.

"It's because they're hearing more of these ideas, the pro-life arguments and other conservative ideas on campus," Parsons said. "It's working their brain a little bit. They have to actually think about it."

Unfortunately, the deck is stacked against the young idealists. Parsons said four years at a liberal institution could change their philosophical outlook.

"What they're learning here on campus, from their professors at least, for the most part is going to be one side of the arguments and that's going to influence them a great deal," he said.

In fact, the UCLA survey showed there's still a long way to go before students begin thinking conservatively in all areas of life. For example, the percentage of students supporting homosexual marriage rose from 57.9 percent in 2001 to 59.3 in 2002.

Not to worry. After college, and with a few years of maturity and a family, most of these kids will come to their senses.

[new cruelty]

To read a summary of the UCLA survey, see the UCLA Web site (requires Adobe Acrobat)

[BruceS]

Parsons said four years at a liberal institution could change their philosophical outlook.

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

[Coop]

Those identifying themselves as "conservative" rose from 19.1 percent in 2001 to 20 percent in 2002. Rick Parsons, of the Young America's Foundation, said the logic is overwhelming.

Based on these numbers, there's no statistical increase at all. Unless the survey used an incredibly large sample population.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

>>"Parsons said four years at a liberal institution could change their philosophical outlook."


And four years of real life outside the ivy will give most the maturity to grow up and be come conservitive.


I said most.

[smith288]

Thats like 2 people moving out of California...its not that big of a change.

[adam_az]

Welcome to your first day in Inhumanities 101! I am your comrade and teacher, Professor Borg. We will begin your indoctrinatio... er... education with some reading selections by Rigoberta Menchu and Amiri Baraka. Now now, settle down young people! Patience! We don't get to the "Michael Moore and the Marxist Dialectic" just yet, but don't worry! We will spend an entire month deconstructing it."

[GiveEmDubya]

I told my parents the following, "If I come back from college a liberal, I want you to shoot me."

I plan on signing up with the College Republicans on Day One.

[FlatLandBeer]

Few years ago we had a college kid in our neighborhood had a bumper sticker on his car. "I Survived 4 years of a Liberal Education"

[Trust but Verify]

My daughter is a college freshman and a conservative. In fact, her friends, many at the University of Wisconsin, a.k.a Moscow on Monona, consider themselves conservatives. But most couldn't care less about politics.

[LS]

A few weeks ago, distraught by all the leftist/peaceniks, a group of University of Dayton students started the "Students for America," a non-partisan group to show support to the troops.

I went to check it ou: about 16-17 people, more than half of them freshmen. I was impressed with the level of interest in conservative things from the "youts."

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Question_Assumptions]

Hey! I had Amiri Baraka as a creating writing professor and, frankly, the man was not that bad in my experience (I'm white). It was certainly better than reading Toni Morrison's Sula in a litertature class. Then again, I had a Current Moral and Social Issues professor tell me that I could skip the final because I was getting an A because I understood the issues better than most of the class did.

[Question_Assumptions]

Learn the facts. Liberals don't do so well when confronted with facts. Just avoid those with frothing mouths. They will get angry and may attempt retribution.

[GiveEmDubya]

I find, at least in my school, I don't confront liberals usually, they confront me. There are times I just don't feel like saying much, because I'm tired or thinking of other things, but they would go after me because they want to feel good about themselves by torching a conservative. Believe me, when I get riled, I can scorch every liberal in a 5 mile radius. I haven't gotten riled yet when I've been on FR by seeing liberal lies on "Barf Alert" posts but I have come remotely close.

Not only do liberals not do well when confronted with facts, they are usually shut down completely when confronted with facts. Liberals know they could only beat a conservative if they were just uninformed, stupid, or a bad debater, but that hasn't happened much to me anyway, so they frequently resort to Plan B: Smear tactics, character assassination, name calling, etc. Quite frankly, it's all they've got.

I have people that won't talk to me anymore because I dared to disagree with their sacred liberal views. In college, I will be careful though, because the Marxist/Stalinist revolutionaries will do whatever they have to do, including extreme retribution.

[Dan from Michigan]

Parsons said four years at a liberal institution could change their philosophical outlook.

Or it could be the same reaction that I had. "WTF is this s**t?".

[Sonny M]

Be carefull with that. I had teachers who were liberal to the core, I never had to say I was concervative, they just figured it out and then would lash out, including have more then one teacher accuse me of showing them up. (In one case, I stated a statictic, trying to mock me, she asked where my proof was, by pure coincidence, I had the print out in front of me, and showed it, she accused me of showing her up). You will actually see your grades get hurt when they use questions where the answers are there own opinions.

[GiveEmDubya]

It happens. My brother's Participation in Government teacher, the course is aptly called PIG, is a die-hard liberal. He cannot stand conservatives and you always know liberals get better grades in there. Conservatives lose points not on their views, but they make stuff up to deduct points from your grade, and because they make up reasons to take off points (ie answer was unclear, improper format for term paper, etc), you can't say a word. I have that to look forward to next year.

Liberals whine and complain when they are proven wrong--and proving a liberal wrong is not that hard to do. They have nothing else but retaliation and venomous invective and they are not afraid to use it. Liberal sanctimoniousness makes them right and how dare you disagree, you bad racist capitalist pig you!

[Sonny M]

I remember one teacher who argued that communism was a great theory but that the leaders were always bad. She popped a gasket when I asked, why is it so hard to find a single good communist leader in this century that wasn't a genocidal maniac, and why is it under communism, people keep getting killed, is there anyone who is a communist leader or could ever be one that isn't nuts? Do communism only appeal to the psycho? Is there something in there that makes these people want to kill everyone who disagrees? In theory and by pure numbers, there should have been at least one good commie leader somewhere by now. She was more then angry (she took it as me calling her a maniac).

[GiveEmDubya]

If she's a communist, she IS a maniac.