Does college turn people into liberals?

The Conversation ^ | 02/02/2018

[DFG]

Does going to college make students into political liberals?

Conservative activists have claimed that universities brainwash students and indoctrinate them into believing a liberal ideology. The line of reasoning goes like this: Liberal college professors tell students “what to think,” and “what to think” is that conservatives and their positions are to be dismissed. A state lawmaker in Iowa has even suggested universities consider political affiliation in connection with hiring practices in order to balance out the distribution of political representation on the faculty.

Conservatives on campus feel outnumbered, given that about 60 percent of faculty identify as politically liberal. This imbalance supposedly hurts research, stifles open discourse and impairs overall education. Missing in this debate, however, is large-scale empirical evidence on how going to college actually impacts students’ attitudes.

[camle]

this ‘study’ only looks at the first year of college. most colleges are four years minimum, with an average six years to graduate. one would think that a study of the entire college exposure would reveal different results...

of course, if the ‘study’ is designed to show a minimal impact of college on student’s thinking, they’d want to keep the exposure time limited, say one year... ooh! coincidence

[KSCITYBOY]

It tries but only succeeds with the weak minded.

[gundog]

I would say that most college prep in high school paves the way for further indoctrination in college.

[Fungi]

Is the pope catholic? On second thought, in consideration of the popester, never mind....

[Trillian]

Only the already gullible idiots.

[Redleg Duke]

It sure as shit doesn’t educate them!

[BobL]

I ultimately blame the parents, in two ways (this assumes the parents want their kids to grow up as Americans, not flaming Leftists):

1) First, if the parents do their job and teach the kids why conservatism is the right way to go, then NOTHING told to them at college will affect their beliefs...at worst, they might call home once in a while if something starts to weaken them (”but dad, isn’t it fair to working families to have a $15 minimum wage”)...and thereby getting the feedback they need.

2) Second, it the parents do their job and DO NOT PERMIT their kids to go away to a Leftist college (i.e., 99% of colleges now) - then their kids will turn out much better. Instead they simply tell their kids to get educated locally. I don’t know the stats, but I suspect that at least 80% of families live within commuting distance of a decent 4-year college - maybe not Ivory League, or the top state school, but a ‘good enough’ college (and most of the remaining families can at have the first 2 years covered at a community college - and then the kid can transfer to a 4-year school, but live OFF CAMPUS - which is far, far, better than living in a dorm as a freshman). And the dirty little secret is that for the vast majority of people, where they went to college will affect them in their FIRST JOB, and that is it. From there, it’s all job experience, plus what the degree is in, rather than where it’s from.

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But parents (far too many, at least) continue to say “Let the kid figure it out for himself”. The problem is that the kid will NEVER have that opportunity if he enters one of them university fish bowls...the people around him, professors, paid activists, and others will do the job his parents should have done - and then it’s game over.

[Calvin Cooledge]

I was liberal in high school and college. Part way through college, two things started me on the road to conservatism.

First, I was telling a girl (LBGTxyz type) in the dorm about my father. When I mentioned his Vietnam service, she said "oh, a baby killer." She said that with zero knowledge of my dad. That made me realize that some liberals did not know what the hell they were talking about.

Secondly, I was working at the University with a retired Marine (combat veteran of street fighting in Korean war and two volunteer tours in Vietnam). I was helping him do demographics on minority students. We calculated that black students dropped out of our college at twice the rate of other students. Cold hard facts. When he published his stats, (hoping to bolster the budget for tutors to reduce the dropout rate) the Director of Minority Affairs came in his office and started yelling at him that he was racist. He kept saying, "ma'am, I am just reporting the numbers. That's all." She just kept screeching. I then realized that liberals are insane.

[Intolerant in NJ]

If one isn’t a liberal at twenty, one has no heart - if one isn’t a conservative by the time he’s thirty, he has no brain - - colleges play on the innate disability of youth to try to recruit to their cause.....

[The_Media_never_lie]

Excepting physical sciences, math, engineering, the percentage of liberals is very high. Conservative need not seek tenure in humanities.

[The_Media_never_lie]

That being said, James Dickey was my favorite all time humanities professor, a real man and I don’t even know his politics. He was against the re-writing of history to blame the US for use of the atom bomb in war time.

[The_Media_never_lie]

All three of my sons are engineers and the engineering department is NOT liberal. My youngest son said that they’d all sit and laugh at the liberal snowflakes go around having kittens over things.

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Yep, and the humanities profs are very jealous of the engineering profs, who get the grant money and have real course work to teach!

[11th_VA]

They tried to get my daughter. She kept switching majors and graduated with a degree in philosophy. After waiting tables for a year, she went back, got a real degree and runs her own business now. She’s a flaming conservative now and HATEs taxes.

[okie 54]

For sure it does not turn them into useful people

[Sicon]

No, ignorance, naïveté, and stupidity turns them into liberals. College just gives them a place to be that way without consequences.

[Oatka]

[jch10]

Wrong! One,in my family of staunch conservatives,came out of college a lamebrain Democrat, liberal, activist. Thirty years later, she still is!

[TexasGunLover]

Wrong! One,in my family of staunch conservatives,came out of college a lamebrain Democrat, liberal, activist. Thirty years later, she still is!

And there are thousands of examples of those who do not... weak minds are easily swayed. A strong moral foundation usually prevents that type of change.

[EEGator]

“A M.Sc. in Mammalian Reproductive Phisiology”

I sort of have that one...

[EEGator]

Now it’s, “is the Pope a SJW Jesuit?”.