Why Republicans Should Not Run Away from Higher Education
With speakers at colleges and universities facing censorship and intimidation, and graduates from these institutions facing spiraling loan debt, it’s no wonder that many Republicans take a negative view of higher education. But the GOP shouldn’t write off the campus population.
Data from Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) spring 2022 poll of over 2,000 Americans aged 18–29 shows that college students are not extremely liberal, and that younger Americans who hold college degrees are notably more civic-minded and engaged than their non-degree-holding counterparts. In fact, college graduates are the members of the electorate most likely to help win elections. Thus, as the battles ramp up for Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024, Republicans need to take another look at the collegiate demographic.
Though left-wing students make the most noise, most students on campus today identify somewhere in the political center. The IOP data are in line with many other surveys and reveal that just a third (32 percent) of college students identify as liberal, with another 21 percent claiming to be conservative. The plurality of students – 46 percent – call themselves moderates.
Proportionally, there may be more liberals on college campuses than in the national population, but even so, the discrepancy is not large. Gallup’s 2021 national average shows that on average in 2021, 37 percent of Americans described their political views as moderate, 36 percent as conservative, and 25 percent as liberal. There are certainly fewer conservatives and more liberals on college and university campuses, but there is no overwhelming liberal monolith – not with a large, presumably persuadable group residing in the middle.
What GOP leadership needs to understand much better than it currently does is that college degree-holders are more politically active than the general population. According to the IOP survey, 46 percent of college degree-holders said that they were politically engaged, compared to just 25 percent of those who have no degree or are not attending college.
Similarly, more than half (55 percent) of degree-holders reported that they intended to cast a ballot this November, while just 29 percent of those not in college said the same. And a majority of college degree-holders (63 percent) maintained that they closely follow national politics, compared with just 46 percent of non-degree holders.
These trends hold true in other areas. College students and graduates were appreciably more likely to claim having volunteered for community service (38 percent and 40 percent) compared to those who hold no degree (25 percent). While low numbers reported having participated in a government, political, or issue-related organization, degree-holders were twice as likely to report doing so (13% for degree-holders, compared to 7 percent of non-degree respondents). The same roughly two-to-one margin holds when it comes to donating money to a political campaign or cause (31 percent for degree-holders, compared to 15 percent of non-degree respondents) and posting content online, such as sharing material advocating for a political position (41 percent to 23 percent).
Degree-holders were also twice as likely to participate in rallies or demonstrations compared to non-degree holders (26 percent versus 13 percent). And when it comes to volunteering on a political campaign for a candidate or an issue, degree holders were significantly more likely to have done so, with one in five saying they did, versus just one in ten of those who are not in college or hold no degree. Conversely, nearly a third of non-degree holders (31 percent) agree with the statement that politics is not relevant to their lives, compared with just 18 percent of college degree-holders who said the same.
It’s clear, then, that American colleges and universities significantly influence the nation’s political environment. Accordingly, Republicans should try to build a greater presence on campuses, not abandon these cohorts to the Left. College students remain fairly diverse in their views, and young degree-holders are notably civically engaged. With crucial elections fast approaching, Republicans need to recognize that their party can benefit from cultivating a more active and engaged group of young citizens.
