Survey: Students get political

A newly released survey of 271,441 full-time college students at 393 four-year colleges and universities reports that today's college freshmen are more politically interested than ever before in the study's 41-year history. The survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institute, a division of the University of California, Los Angeles, may point to a growing trend at universities across the nation. At Boston College, this movement toward political discussion is reflected both in the classroom and in the community, especially through the efforts of the College Democrat and College Republican chapters at BC.

A Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) study titled "The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006" surveyed freshman in a number of categories, including political views. Over one-third of students (33.8 percent) reported they discussed politics as high school seniors, once a taboo subject in that demographic, up 8.3 percent in the last year.

"Politics is now the center of conversation. Students have more exposure to politics in general coming to college today," said Amanda Short, president of the College Republicans and CSOM '07. Patrick Healey, president of the College Democrats and A&S '07, shared similar views, noting that BC is more politically active than the average college campus.

With this national increase in political conversation, the survey also found that students are more likely to identify themselves as "liberal" or "conservative" rather than "middle of the road." Less than half of all college freshmen (43.3 percent) now identify themselves as "middle of the road," the lowest percentage since 1970.

Traditionally, college students have been reluctant to identify with the political left or right, but 28.4 percent of college freshmen surveyed this fall considered themselves as "liberal" and 23.9 percent considered themselves "conservative."

The percentage of "liberal" students marked the highest recording since 1975, while the "conservative" percentage is at the highest point in the history of the survey.

"College students get to know themselves better and their beliefs become different from their parents and grandparents," said Healey when asked to comment on the student movement away from the political center.

Alan Wolfe, a professor in the political science department and the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and Politics, has observed a slight tendency of BC students to identify themselves as liberal rather than conservative.

"There's a lot of anger at Bush right now," he said. Still, Wolfe does not believe BC students identify with either the far left or the far right, but primarily upper middle-class interests. "BC students don't tend to be extremists. They aren't screamers," said Wolfe.

Students surveyed by CIRP were also asked to agree or disagree with various social and political issues. Responses to certain social issues, especially gay marriage and abortion, were particularly divisive among self-identified liberals and conservatives. On the issue of whether "same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status," the most polarizing issue among surveyed, 83.7 percent of liberals agreed, but only 30.4 percent of conservatives favored same-sex marriage. Another divisive issue, abortion, elicited similar divisions. While 78.4 percent of liberal freshman agreed that "abortion should be legal," only 31.8 percent of conservatives felt the same.

At BC, the issues of abortion and gay marriage pit liberals against conservatives, and in some cases, even create division within the political groups such as the College Democrats and College Republicans. Part of this division may be explained by the Catholic faith and values held by the majority of BC students.

With regard to abortion, Wolfe believes BC students tend to be more opposed to the pro-choice movement because of the Catholic Church's stance on such issues. Still, both Wolfe and short noted that most Catholics hold stances on the topic of birth control that are contrary to the church in Rome.

Healey argued that the values of the Democrats and Catholics share important similarities. He said that both groups value social justice and see the war in Iraq as immoral. He still noted, however, that some liberal students may not yet be comfortable with same-sex marriage because it goes against Catholic doctrine. He believes that the focus should be taken off some of these divisive social issues and redirected to more immediate problems facing the nation. "There are more pressing issues out there. It's idiotic that this comes to the forefront," he said.

Short also identified points of diversity within members of College Republicans. "We're about 50-50 on abortion and about 50-50 on gay marriage," she said. On the all-important issue of the war in Iraq, Short described the club's stance as partially united and partially divided. "Most of us agree about being in Iraq, but we're split on the direction to go from here," she said. But on core fiscal issues, Short said the members of her organization are almost completely in line with the Republican platform.

All of this internal variety might come as a surprise, but considering the emergence of a handful of socially liberal republicans and socially conservative democrats in congress, BC is simply following a larger trend. "America is more divided than ever before," said Short. She noted that many students don't know where they fall on the political spectrum because of division on a few particularly salient issues. For instance, she contended that support for the war in Iraq is not a Republican principle. "Just because you don't support the war doesn't mean you can't be a Republican," she said.