It's not a surprise to me, based on my experience with high school kids, but apparently college students are becoming more conservative. Despite the fact that the vast majority of college professors are registered Democrats (cache), this new survey reveals that:
Perhaps surprisingly, 31 percent of college students identify themselves as Republicans, while 27 percent call themselves Democrats and 38 percent independent or unaffiliated.I'm going to ask one of my high school-age friends at church to write a little bit about the political views of his peers; we've discussed the topic, and he might be interested in putting his thoughts down on uh... paper."College campuses aren't a hotbed of liberalism anymore," Glickman said. "It's a different world."
The general population is significantly more Democratic -- about 36 percent of Americans consider themselves Democrats, 27 percent Republicans, 20 percent independents or third-party loyalists, and the rest have no preference, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. ...
Sixty-one percent of students approve of Bush's performance on the job -- higher than the president's overall national approval ratings, which have dipped in recent months and now stand at 50 percent in a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
Meanwhile, as has been mentioned before, abortion is losing acceptance among women. Demographics seem to be turning against the so-called "liberal" Democrats, and it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. Most likely, the Democratic party will pull righward to track the population, but we'll see.
Tyler Cowen -- who drew my attention to this survey -- links to the survey itself.
I've noticed this too, my group of friends is generally conservative, but there are a decent ammount in the group who are registered democrats. A couple observations. Many have a strong libertarian viewpoint, and thats more along the lines of a right wing political stance. Another thing is, while the republican party has shifted a little to the left, has become slightly more moderate, the democratic party has remained pretty far to the left, even getting brasher in its veiwpoints. Don't let the study fool you, it sure seems to me like there are a lot more fanatical democrats on college campuses then republicans, but this study shows there may be hope yet for the youth of america
:-)
Mass conservatism/liberalism among 18-22 year olds (college students) swings back and forth in 10-20 year cycles.
1950- 1967 - conservative (Post WWII years)
1967-1980 - liberal (LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter years)
1980-1992 - conservative (Reagan-Bush years)
1992-2002 - liberal (Clinton/Bush)
2003-? - conservative (Bush and beyond)
It vascillates because college kids often reject the legacy of their parents and want to be different...
The simple truth is that most college students grow up in America's heartland. There are more people there who have bigger families in the midwest and nobody wants their children to be left out of college in today's society. The midwest, as shown by the recent election, certainly is conservative. Perhaps the reason that so large a majority of college students is conservative is that they have grown up with these values and also outnumber their parents, considering that many couples have more than one child. I know that my family will be sending all three children through college, starting with me this year, my sister next year, and my other sister the following year. that's three opinions in a nationwide college poll as a opposed to only two in a national poll. is this making sense? i hope so. i'll stop explaining. anyhow, i believe that America, in das to come will contiue to be conservative because of this "phenominon".