College liberalism

[angus]

Why are colleges so liberal? Even in states like South Dakota, colleges have Democratic landslides.

Even in the facist-falsified (first Nader, now this!) South Dakota results, Kerry won Clay County, South Dakota (Vermillion and the University of South Dakota), 54-44.

I have never quite understood this.

I always found this one easy to understand.  (I assume by liberal you mean american liberal, not classically liberal)  College towns are filled with college students, and college professors.  College students are poor.  College professors aren't too rich either.  For example, when I was in college and grad school, I was a very left.  I was a card-carrying, dues-paying member of several leftist organizations, including The Socialist Party of Texas, The Massachusetts Revolutionary Workers Party, and The Green Party.  Once I got that first really good paying job a few years ago, I became a Repbulican.  My views on economics changed dramatically.  (of course, my views on social issues didn't, but that's irrelevant since I don't vote on social issues)  Now that I've quit the good paying job in favor of more leisure time and gone back to living in a college town, I've shifted left economically.

we vote in our own economic self-interests.  at least I do.  My assumption is that others do as well.

[angus]

Because they have students who tend to be young and in a very Democratic age group, and liberal professors and faculty. And the overal culture of college towns adds to liberalism overall.

I think that's another execellent point.  Age.

Another that I've thought of is internationalism.  College towns attract many more folks from all over.  Countries like Mexico, China, Russia, etc., where folks obviously see a much greater role for government than do we.  For example, for about 5 months I've been living in a small town in flyover country.  But there can be no doubt that my little town is Kerry country (though certainly not the county it's in, which is overwhelmingly Bush country).  Now, part of that is obviously because the town is poor and about half black.  But a huge part is the college life aspect.  For example, In my apartment, of the two adults who live there, one is from a communist country.  Just below me, lives a professor who is a citizen from Bolivia.  To my right, next door, is a couple who are Canadians.  To my left, next door, lives a guy from Bangladesh.  I have usually lived in college towns, and I have usually had foreign roommates and neighbors, and I have usually noted an unusually high support for the Democrat candidate over the GOP in most local and presidential races.  (albeit, this doesn't mean that the Dem wins, because this very local phenomenon may be outweighed by the suburbanites and rural folks.  But as a local phenomenon, it's right on.)

So, low age, low income, high incidence of foreign-born population, etc., all add to the "liberal" flavor of most college towns.  Though not to the suburbs and rural areas surrounding those small cities. 

htmldon points out an important trend, sure GOP does better among wealthier and better-educated overall.  this explains why dems are more often disenfranchised than republicans.  it's a very well established fact that "overvotes" and "undervotes" will always help the GOP candidate, not the dems.  NO, it's not fair, but that's life.  but that's an entirely different issue, and need not be considered here, as it is is not directly related to the question.  I do think it's an excellent point, and worth mentioning, that among college educated (bs and ba) voters, republicans do better.  But among those who hold graduate and professional degrees (conscpicuously excepting MDs, who are republicans) the dems often do better.  The answer to that corollary to this thread may lie in something John Dibble posted earlier.  (idealism and such)

[angus]

Should be pointed out that while there is some correlation between higher education and voting Republican, this correlation is a good deal smaller (If I remember correctly, an important caveat here ) than the correlation between a high income and voting Republican...in other words, well-educated people tend to be more Republican than the population as a whole, but less Republican than people who make just as much money with less education.

that's right.  CNN has lots of stats collected via post-election polling.  I'll try to dig up a link. 

also, your post seems to have, at its core, an underlying theme is that socialism is good for humanity as a whole, but those among us who allow personal greed inhibit that realization are somehow undermining that Great Leap Forward.  I used to think that myself.  Again, I thought that only when I didn't have two coins to rub together, but still, you may be on to something.  I've often dreamed of living in a Star Trek world where no money changes hands, where you walk up to the food replicator and say "Tea, earl grey." and it appears.  No personal private property.  No coins.  No class.  I'm sure many of us do.  But it requires letting go of too many Western Notions.  I'm not sure any Earth society is truly ready for that.  Not to mention that with today's technology, the fundamental problem of limited supply requires a certain greediness if you really want to live comfortably.  (In fact, it was John's use of the word Idealistic that made me think of Star Trek.  And my thought of that show which made me snap back to the capitalistic reality of the modern primitive world.)

[angus]

When I'm in Asia or SA or CA I get into that really reflexive mood as well.   But on friday afternoon at 2, when the work is finished and I know I should be headed home to the old lady, I tend to be much more grounded.

Also, be careful what you wish for.  Einstein, when asked what he thought would be the weapon of choice for the third world war said, "I don't know, but I can tell what the fourth will be fought with:  sticks and stones."  There's really only one way to go back, and it's not good.  But many ways to go forward, and a few of them actually make sense.  Now that Bush has been re-elected and my serotonin levels are appropriately elevated, I find that I am safely returning to my previous non-ideological equilibrium centrist state in which I can be sold on any right-wing or left-wing idea without malice or prejudice.  Even a Walden-type natural existence without amenities.  I may even go back to posting Mullet-rock lyrics, which I still contend contain all the philosophy you ever really need to know. 

the following may or may not be relevant to this thread, but I found it interesting.
http://communication.ucsd.edu/911/grovesofacademe.html

meanwhile, take a look at america's most warped and possibly most mulleted generation, mine, while we were all in high-school singing "Safety Dance" and cheering on Reagan and the Cold Warriors. 

[angus]

Some of liberalism may have to do with a college being basically a cloistered environment.  It's isolated and a lot of professors really don't go into the "real world." 

Hmmmm.  but are monks "liberal"?   are hermits "liberal"?

my gut says no!  but an earlier post by Trondheim says maybe!  You may be right. 

("you may be wrong, but for all I know you may be right...") 

I do agree that most of 'em aren't going out into the private sector much (Can you blame?!  They actually expect folks to work in the private sector!  Thanks, but no thanks.)

Nice stats smash.  As I recall when I was living in Somerville (aka Slummerville), a bedroom community for college & graduate students adjacent to Cambridge, Mass., in 2000, that Gore got 69 percent of the vote in that city, Nader 16%, and Bush 15%.  Ouch.


We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're no friends of mine
I say, we can go where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind

[angus]

I do not base this soley on perception. Public universities are overwhelmingly liberal in all cases I have found. The University of Oregon at Eugene voted 85%-15% Kerry in the precinct results I saw. Similarly, other public universities vote by such landslide margins.

The question primarily references public universities - I know that private ones vary greatly.

aaaah, well, that throws a further level of complexity into an already complex model (monkeywrench into the clockworks, you might say, except that this particular clock stopped working long ago due to the profusion of wrenches in its gears).  Large state schools are often located in state capitals.  (not always, of course)  but take UT Austin, for example.  One of U magazine's "most liberal schools in America" in one of pop-cultures most "conservative states in America"  Note that state capitals (and our nation's national capital) always weather economic recessions far better than other large cities.  This is due, in part, because of the large number of government jobs in those cities.  Government employees have "safe" jobs in the sense that they're not subject to the high-amplitude fluctuations in any market.  Thus grocery stores, porn shops, head shops, art galleries, cafes, movie theaters, etc., located in capital cities turn a pretty brisk business even in the Worst of Times (not to be confused with the excellent Mullet-Rock song by Styx, "The Best of Times")  Professors, Senators, Assembleymen, their janitors, secretaries, cafeteria workers, hair-stylists, etc., know that a great big dole favors their causes well.  Don't be alarmed, as this is neither good nor bad (in fact, I contend that nothing really is, but then I'm not a Zoroastrian), but it is a well-known trend.  The bigger the school, the bigger the state, the more diverse (really diverse, not the currently fashionable use of that term which, as often as not, refers to enforced racial diversity, but really ideologically, geographically, intellectually, economically diverse) the population.  Thus any large state school in a large state capitol can be expected to be overwhelmingly "liberal" in the american sense.  And even a small state school in a small state capitol can be shown, by the same argument, to be liberal as well, it's just a matter of degree.  (certainly no pun intended there) 

Private schools, and schools in small towns waaay outside any major metropolitan center, and in particular outside a state's capitol city, will, of course, be subject to a different analysis.

[angus]

  JJ,
I present the prior post for your approval as a fair example of groupthink 

I gotta get outside and start reading some Ayn Rand.  Thanks for the early diagnosis.  Admitting that one needs help is the first step.

(I say "fair" rather than "excellent" example because of the profusion of obnoxious, gratuitous, and distracting cultural references.  Any self-respecting groupthinker would lose the Styx reference, at a minimum.)

[angus]

Now, I publish a lot in my field, and a number of times, I explain the theory behind what I've been involved.  In several cases, I've finished up and said, "Okay, nobody's done this before, now I have to sit down and write the paper explaining it."  It's because of that that I get some good articles out of it.

well, that's the way it ought to be done, I think. 

and of course groupthink doesn't have to be left or right, or either, or both.  I don't think the term implies a sociopolitical bias, does it? 

out of curiosity, what is your area of professional interest?

[angus]

It looks like the more educated a voter is, there are greater chances that he/she did not vote for Bush.
From few private small and non-scientific samples that I took  from high school teachers in CT, it seems that only 25% of them voted Bush, which is almost by 20% lower than the 44% that Bush got in CT.

This is not true. Graduates voted Bush; those with postgraduate degrees voted Kerry. They end up making money, and change party.

still, given her raw data, and her apparent inability to use the telephone, newspaper, or internet to produce any other, it's a reasonable statement to make.