Political Polarization Is At an All Time High. Now It Is Affecting Prospective Student’s College Decisions.

A new study illuminates the power of political polarization in college choice. Source: Pexels

Red school or blue school? This is a determining factor in choosing a college for one in four prospective students across America.

Choosing a college used to be about size of the school, location, academic opportunities, and other determining factors. With political polarization constantly building in the United States, politics were bound to become a high value factor. 

Higher education has never been more polarized, according to The Washington Post. 

This behavior is not limited to a specific political party either. 

According to the Art and Science Group LLC, in regards to prospective students choosing where to obtain their higher education, “This behavior was statistically true across liberals, moderates, and conservatives.”

Within these parties, 31% of liberals ruled out schools based on social policies of the school, 28% of conservatives did the same, and 22% of moderates also followed suit.

32% of members of the LGBTQ+ community claim to rule out schools due to social policies and political values, surpassing the heterosexual community at only 21%. 

Prospective students ruled out entire states when choosing their higher education. 

Liberal leaning students were found to eliminate a much larger amount of states than Republican leaning or moderate leaning students.

“While most liberal-leaning students more often mentioned excluding a school located in the South or Midwest, conservative-leaning students were likely to strike either California or New York off their college lists” Art and Science Group LLC stated.

Liberal-leaning students provided plenty of reasons as to why they ruled out the states previously mentioned as well as the schools within those states.

Highest ranking amongst reasons was that the school was “Too Republican”.

Other reasons included: The school was too conservative about abortion rights, that there was a lack of concern about racial equality, that it was too easy to obtain a gun and many others.

Similarly, conservative leaning students also provided their reasoning for eliminating certain schools, the highest ranking being that the school was “Too Democratic”

The other reasons listed were simply the same complaints that the liberal leaning students had, just stated in a conservative perspective.

The Supreme Court is currently deciding on whether to ban race conscious admissions nationwide, as reported by The Washington Post. 

“The court’s conservative majority is widely expected to end affirmative action in admissions, a decision that could reshape the racial and ethnic mix of students at the most competitive schools and inject more volatility into the red-blue debate,” per The Washington Post. 

The study conducted by the Art and Science Group LLC led to a simple conclusion.

“With political polarization on the rise, and all regions set to see declines in the number of high school graduates in coming years, lawmakers and campus administrators would do well to take student convictions into account as political change-making continues to infiltrate campus life. And importantly, as the regional student markets shift, institutions will likely need to pay particular attention to their individual and distinctive positioning in order to attract students in their market despite challenges posed by state social policies,” the Art and Science Group LLC said.