The U.S. presidential election last year left its mark on college freshmen, who are more politically polarized than they’ve been in at least half a century, says an annual report released on Monday.
Fewer first-year students than ever — 42 percent — described their politics as “middle of the road,” while 36 percent considered themselves liberal or far left and 22 percent conservative or far right.
The survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, also found that a gender gap among freshmen is at its highest since the survey started, in 1966. About 41 percent of women, the highest percentage ever, identified as liberal or far left, compared with 29 percent of men.
This year’s survey also explored differences in how students view their tolerance of one another. About 87 percent of left-leaning students said they had “strong” or “somewhat” strong tolerance for people with different beliefs, compared with 82 percent of centrist students and about 68 percent of right-leaning students.
The findings are based on responses from 137,456 first-year students at 184 American colleges and universities. Last year the survey found that freshmen were the class most likely to participate in a protest since the survey began.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/political-division-soars-on-campus-survey-finds/118061