WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — Already inclined toward liberalism, college freshmen are leaning even farther left on key political issues, a nationwide survey of first-year students has found.
An all-time high of 71.3 percent of the new students support same-sex marriage, 6.4 percentage points higher than in 2009, according to the annual survey of more than 200,000 freshmen conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute.
Nearly 43 percent of conservative freshmen said gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry.
Opinions on abortion, marijuana legalization, immigration and affirmative action also grew more liberal in 2011, according to data released Wednesday. The 270-school survey — the country’s largest sampling of college students — was first used in 1966.
“It’s not so much that liberal students are becoming more liberal,” said Linda DeAngelo, one of the report’s authors. “It’s that students who describe themselves as conservative are becoming more progressive.”
A little more than 22 percent of respondents described themselves as conservative or “far right.” About 30 percent said they were liberal or “far left,” while 47.4 percent called themselves “middle of the road.”
Despite the apparent liberalization, political advocates hoping to recruit students to their causes need to realize the survey is more reflective of young people’s tolerance on social issues, not enthusiasm, said Ange-Marie Hancock, a political science professor at the University of Southern California.
“They’re not like ATMs, where you can just withdraw their support,” she said. “You have to cultivate them as voters.”
The survey also revealed that alcohol consumption dropped to an all-time low in 2011, with 35.4 percent saying they drank beer as high school seniors.
Just less than 58 percent of respondents said they were attending their first-choice college — the lowest number since 1974 — and more high school students took advanced-placement courses and studied longer than in the past.
“I think high school students are stressed about getting into college,” said DeAngelo, of UCLA. “There’s an increased pressure to perform.”
What’s that old saying? If you’re under 30 and are not liberal you have no heart, If you’re over 30 and still a liberal you have no brain.
Thats the one. After they work for a few years ( the ones that do ) they quickly see there money go bye bye and find out they are working for a effective 5 bucks a hour then they become non liberals real fast.
Very old, very old. Antique and outmoded.
Good little sheep……..hehe……
“In a time of universal deception, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” (Orwell).
Let the indoctrination begin!
This kind of proves my point that I try to make: It is easy to be a liberal, and you don’t ever find a conservative that turns into a liberal. I have met many people who started out as liberals and turned conservative over time. Everyone has their tendencies, but in general there is a transformation that takes place.
Ed Schultz was a conservative talking radio head in the 1990’s but change from a consrrvative to a liberal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Schultz
‘In the late 1990s, Schultz claims a series of events changed his political views from the far right to the far left. One event was his mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s Disease which began a long, slow decline of her mental health. Schultz found it frustrating trying to get her the services that she needed. Another was that he met a psychiatric nurse named Wendy who ran a homeless shelter in Fargo.[16] He attributed much of his political change to her, and although he had criticized the homeless on his show, he said in his book that she helped to humanize them. To his surprise, he found that some of the people he had insulted were veterans, and many were unable to get the psychiatric or medical services that might help them. He says that was the moment he began to look at poverty differently.[17]
He became a Democrat in 2000 marking the formal turn in his politics from conservative to liberal. He went out to do radio promotions in rural North Dakota, and told reporters about how he met farmers who were suffering and hard-working people who were going hungry, even though Republicans said the economy was doing fine. He began to hold benefits to raise money for people in the heartland who were going through tough times.[18] In addition, he began questioning some of the assertions of George W. Bush; although he supported several Republican candidates in the 2000 election, he was becoming critical of other Republicans. Schultz considered running for the Democratic-NPL party nomination for governor against incumbent Republican John Hoeven in 2004, but decided to continue his career in radio.’
There are plenty more but you get my drift.
There is a difference between being a conservative and being a republican, I don’t tie the two together by any means.
If you read the link, or even the part I quoted, you would see that he was both a Republican and a conservative.
I never stated he was a Republican just that he evolved from a conservative to a liberal in reply to the post that stated that conservatives never become liberals.
‘In the late 1990s, Schultz claims a series of events changed his political views from the far right to the far left….. if you need to read the passage again.
I don’t really believe he was a conservative to begin with. But then again I find that there are two classes on both sides, the anti’s and the pro’s. The anti’s just like being opposed to everything. The pro’s I get along with fine on both sides.
He was a conservative by his own words but converted to a liberal. I was able to find a conservative who converted to a liberal and there are many more, just because you don’t want to believe it does not make it false.
Ok, so I’m not sure where you want to go with this one, I just said that I don’t think the guy was a conservative to begin with, I have never met anyone who I share beliefs with that has made some sort of drastic conversion to the left
Looks like encouragement of independent thinking over indoctrination is succeeding.