College Students Believe...

Recently, Harvard University’s Institute of Politics released their findings on the political attitudes of college students in the United States of America. The study, embraced by both liberals and conservatives as accurate, focused on the topics of current events, religion and morality in politics, and emerging political groups and typology.

I am providing you with a summary of their findings. My analysis of the results is located at the end of the article. All the percentages are directly taken from the report. The poll and survey revealed trends among college students (most of which I wasn’t surprised at all by). My generation of college students is a generation of “we” instead of “me.” This is due in part to the volunteer spirit that tends to dwell inside of my generation’s general attitude.

The numbers the survey discovered, however, reveal far more than just a volunteer spirit. While college students tend to reflect the views of the public on the issue of President Bush’s approval ratings, the college student population and adult population diverge at that point in opinions. College students have grown up in a post 9/11 world. Their worldview began to develop after 9/11; therefore, they tend to have different views than older adults. About 72% of college students believe the United Nations should take a leading role in dealing with international crises. However, that fact is not because the majority of students have lost faith in America; that fact is due to the belief that it is the duty of the United Nations to take such a role. Currently, 72% of college students believe we should begin to withdraw troops from Iraq, with 60% wanting some of the troops to leave Iraq. Only 12% are on the fringe and want all troops out of Iraq. College students tend to be more cautious against attacking Iran, mainly because such a situation might cause a draft eventually.

Unlike with the aging baby-boomer generation, religion is alive and well with college students. Around 70% of college students say religion plays an important role in their lives. Contrary to what some adults believe, students as a body don’t tend to become more atheistic when they enter college. On the contrary, 25% of college students say they have become more religious upon entering college, while 7% of college students report they have become less religious. As is standard in our day and age, the political divide is real when it comes to college students and politics. On the Republican side, 56% of students want their leaders to talk more about religion; on the Democratic side, only 21% of students want their leaders to talk more about religion. The report goes into more detail concerning this divide, however I will not get into that for this article. College students, no matter the party affiliation, are concerned with the moral direction of the United States. These moral issues include, but are not limited to, stem cell research, abortion, homosexual marriage, education, and the war policy. It appears college students tend to view political issues in a moral context; this might explain why such issues as education and the war policy came up in the survey.

The political landscape is shifting with this new generation of college students. No longer do these students wish to be captured by a label, such as conservative or liberal. A new ideological group is forming in the center of the political spectrum. Of interest are two sub-groups of this center ideology – the religious centrists and the secular centrists.

Religious centrists are highly moral and consider abortion and homosexual marriage to be immoral. They tend to support free trade, universal health-care, and protecting the environment. Religious centrists tend to be very optimistic about the future of this country.

(To place these two new groups in perspective, I will include the definition of conservatives and liberals as the survey indicates) Traditional conservative college students tend to support President Bush’s foreign policy, desire more religion in politics, and are against abortion and homosexual marriage. They, like the religious centrists, are optimistic about the future.

Traditional liberals believe in universal health-care, homosexual marriage, abortion, and tend to believe protecting the environment is more important than protecting jobs.

The last group, the secular centrists, tends to be unsupportive of banning abortions and homosexual marriage. Like conservatives, they tend to support President Bush’s foreign policy, and they tend to support allowing the government to monitor terrorists in the United States.

As a whole, Republican college students are twice as optimistic about the future when compared to Democrats. Religious centrists are very likely to vote, while secular centrists are not as likely to vote.

Now, for the part you’ve all been waiting for – my analysis of this data. I tend to agree with nearly every single word in this report. I believe the U.N. should take a larger role in the world’s problems simply because that is their job. It is not and should not be the job of the United States to police the world, although I believe it will inevitably be our job since the United Nations is incompetent in its work. Contrary to popular belief, college students are not Birkenstock liberals who want all our troops out of Iraq this instant. Like the vast majority of college students, I am religious. It is interesting to note that while liberals consider themselves religious, they are leery of including religion in politics. In my mind, that puts doubt on the relevance of their faith. I agree with the majority of students who are concerned with our moral direction as a nation. I don’t consider education and health-care to be a moral issue, although I can easily see how many of my fellow students would see them in that light. With the emergence of the new centrist categories, it gives me nothing but optimism for our nation. College students have historically been liberal. However, with these new centrists at the college level, it shows that even a liberal education system is simply not as effective at indoctrination as it once was in decades past. As students and adults grow older and wiser, they tend to become more conservative. Since liberals do not have quite as powerful of an upper hand at the college level with students, it bodes well for the future of the conservative movement in America.

Finally, you might want to know where I would consider myself in the college political spectrum. It would consider myself a traditional conservative in general. I usually support the Bush’s pre-emptive strike philosophy, and I believe abortion to be a heinous crime against humanity. I am a staunch free market supporter, and I believe in as small of a government as realistically possible in our day and age. However, I also tend toward the religious centrists in that I tend to be rather protective of the environment (the economy, however, still comes first in my mind). I also support homosexual marriage because I believe the GOVERNMENT has no right to deny that right to its citizens. As you can see, though I consider myself a traditional conservative, you can’t really put a single label on me. The Republican (and Democratic) party should consider this for future elections. College students can’t be put in a box, and therefore the Republican Party (and Democratic) needs to make sure and address the issues that college students care about.

I am very optimistic about the future of the country and the conservative movement. Though it is always hard work to keep the country moving forward, I believe this next generation will easily be able to continue the American dream of liberty, economic freedom, and a strong America in the world.