On issues such as abortion, gay "marriage" and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows.
The reason, according to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, isn't indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.
After college, students — particularly women — move somewhat back to the right politically.
The research is the latest of several efforts by academics to lend analytical rigor to an emotional debate. Overall, college faculty lean left politically, but there's sharp disagreement on whether they impose their views on students. The UCLA researchers are among several social scientists who have tried to undermine the argument that students respond strongly to their teachers' opinions.
Overall, students were nearly as likely after three years of college to call themselves "conservative" or "far-right," according to findings, and only somewhat more likely to call themselves "liberal" or "far left."
On specific policy questions, they moved to more liberal positions.
Sixty percent of the college juniors said they support legalized abortion, up from 52 percent who said so as freshmen. The percentage supporting "legal marital status" for gay couples rose from 54 to 66. The percentage supporting increased defense spending fell from 34 to 25.
"People are moving out of the center to the left during college," said one of the researchers, Alexander Astin.
Studies dating back decades have noted the trend of college students moving to the left during their college careers. But finding a representative snapshot of overall college opinion is difficult, because colleges have such varying student bodies.
The new figures from UCLA — which has been tracking attitudes of freshmen for more than 40 years — give a fresher and, the authors contend, more valid portrait. Based on a sample of nearly 15,000 students who entered 136 colleges in 2004, the results are carefully weighted to represent the full college population. Unlike some other such surveys, UCLA was able to pose its questions to the same students when they started college and after junior year.
The responses came over a time of deepening unpopularity for the Bush administration and Republicans generally. But Astin said the data show a clear effect from being in college, not just a national trend. In particular, in a separate, not-yet published paper using similar data, he and colleague Nida Denson claim to isolate the changes to students' exposure to left-leaning peer groups.
Right-leaning students tend to concentrate at a smaller number of colleges. So at most colleges, there are more left-leaning peer groups, and students on balance move leftward.
"If you find yourself in a peer group where on balance the attitudes lean left, you'll tend to move in that direction," Astin said.
The UCLA research follows recent work by Gordon Hewitt of Hamilton College and Mack Mariani of Xavier University, and three authors of a new book called "Closed Minds? Politics and Ideology in American Universities." Both groups claim to represent a range of personal political views, but both generally conclude claims of classroom bias and indoctrination are overstated. Continue >>
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You are exactly right, believer.It was a shock to me.The same people who talk about being open-minded are closed-minded when it comes to Christianity.I'm sure they thought they were doing me a great service by attacking my so-called outdated and narrow-minded beliefs.
GE, isn't it sad that it appears with the liberals they want people to be free to think for themselves or what they want that is until it conflicts with the way they think.
I have a degree in Religion-Philosophy from a very liberal College, and some of my Professors tried to systematically pick apart my belief in the authority of Scriptures, the Deity of Christ, and the Resurrection of Jesus.I think it challenged me to know what I believe and why.I think I am better for the experience, although I spent my first two years arguing with them, and my last two years going along with them just to get a good grade.Some students acted like they swooned over the Professors, although they may have just been going along to get a passing grade, too.
"both generally conclude claims of classroom bias and indoctrination are overstated."
Amen. I've been waiting for this for awhile because I am tired of people assuming that my professors indoctrinate me. The only people saying and thinking this are radio commentators that have never been to a "secular" university.
Face it, churches do not expose their students to the outside world. That is why so many young people fall away. The world their church indoctrinated them with cannot survive outside of the Sunday school classroom.
Students become more left leaning at university, now theres a novelty.....