The Role of Politics in Where Students Want to Go to College
Scott Jaschik
March 27, 2023
Study finds that nearly one in four high school seniors said they passed up, out of political concerns, a college they would have initially considered because of its state. The trend is evident among conservatives and liberals.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the Constitution did not guarantee a right to abortion, many expected the result to influence where students chose to enroll at college.
There were anecdotal reports of some students changing colleges, but the timing of the decision, in June, limited students from changing, especially at competitive colleges with strict May 1 deadlines for responding to an offer of admissions.
This is the first year when the decisions students are making about where to enroll will be after that Supreme Court decision—and after a palpable coarsening of relations between conservatives and liberals.
