College-bound students are increasingly rejecting schools in states whose politics differ from their own, and many cite “cancel culture” and abortion as key issues, polls show.
About 72% of college students said abortion laws in their schools’ states influenced their decisions on whether to keep attending, according to a survey last week from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit that provides education grants. The survey showed that 60% of adults ages 18-59 without a college degree said state abortion laws would affect their decisions to attend particular schools.
In addition, about 25% of college-bound high school seniors said they “ruled out institutions solely due to the politics, policies or legal situation in the state” in a winter survey by Art & Science Group, a Baltimore-based educational consulting firm. The results of the survey of 1,865 students were released on Wednesday.
Some academics say the surveys echo what they have heard from students amid a growing campus “cancel culture” from the right and left during the COVID-19 pandemic. They point to conservatives’ fears of being punished for expressing contrary political opinions on campus and liberals’ desire to avoid conservative states that have restricted abortion access since the Supreme Court returned jurisdiction to the states in June.
“When I speak to teens or teach my college classes, they tell me they don’t want to go to school or live on the West Coast. They see it as the land of human waste and homeless encampments,” said Alex McFarland, an instructor at Charis Bible College, an unaccredited evangelical school in Alexandria, Virginia.
“A decision to avoid states that have passed laws with extreme limitations on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy is not a political decision; it’s a medical decision,” said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association. “Why would a woman choose to move to a state that prohibits important medical services and procedures?”
Others interpret the findings as huffing and puffing from students who they predict will go wherever they get the most financial aid.
“Call me skeptical,” said Michael Warder, a California-based nonprofit consultant and former vice chancellor of Pepperdine University. “Quality of the college and cost after any financial aid are far more important drivers in the decision students and their families make about where to attend college.”
Among the quarter of students responding to the Arts & Science Group poll who said state politics would affect their school choices, 32% said they would not attend college in their home states.
Conservative students were most likely to avoid schools in California and New York, where lawmakers are working to enshrine abortion rights into state law. Liberal students said they had discounted schools in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana and Florida, which have enacted restrictions on the procedure.
Walter Block, an economist at Loyola University New Orleans in conservative Louisiana, said the findings reinforce the wisdom of letting students mingle with like-minded people.
“All of my students are comfortable with the laws of Louisiana on a myriad of issues,” Mr. Block said. “This is part and parcel of peaceful boycotting, supporting and withholding support from states in order to get them to follow policies to your liking. This is a lot better than riots.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has signed legislation restricting the teaching of “divisive concepts” about gender and race in the state’s public universities. Last month, he signed a bill banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
In a survey of 783 Florida high school students and 364 undergraduates in the state’s public universities, Intelligent.com found that 91% of prospective and 78% of current college students disagreed with Mr. DeSantis’ education policies. One in 8 graduating high school seniors said they won’t attend a state college this fall because of that.
Students’ political selectivity has heightened as universities nationwide struggle with rising tuition costs, declining enrollments and free speech controversies. Higher education watchers say these challenges have intensified since COVID-19 shuttered campuses in March 2020.
Political divisions also have grown on campus. The 2020 death of George Floyd sparked a dramatic increase in efforts to punish college professors, scholars and speakers for “controversial speech” with petitions, sanctions and firings, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reported last month.
The political “self-segregation” of students who want to avoid other viewpoints doesn’t help this situation, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor in the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I understand why many students are avoiding colleges in states with social policies — especially around abortion — that the students reject,” Mr. Zimmerman said. “But that’s also very bad news for our democracy, which requires us to learn to speak across our differences.”
Some analysts said it’s unlikely that abortion politics will make any lasting difference in college enrollment trends.
Michael New, a Catholic University of America professor who studies abortion statistics, noted that several universities in abortion-restricting states welcomed a flood of new students last fall. That included the second-largest freshman class ever at Rice University in Texas, the largest freshman class in history at the University of Oklahoma and increasing enrollments at Texas A&M University and the University of Tennessee.
“Actual enrollment data found no evidence of low enrollments in universities located in states with laws in place protecting pre-born children,” said Mr. New, noting that several surveys published after the Supreme Court ruling last summer had predicted otherwise.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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