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.
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.
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.....
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. Shes a flaming conservative now and HATEs taxes.
For sure it does not turn them into useful people
No, ignorance, naïveté, and stupidity turns them into liberals. College just gives them a place to be that way without consequences.