Is it true the higher level of education someone has the less likely they are to be politically conservative?

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Is it true the higher level of education someone has the less likely they are to be politically conservative?

Comments

  1. PoopMobile9000 Avatar

    100% true. Part of this is selection bias, conservatives are less likely to go to universities, and are less likely to live in communities where that’s expected. The experience of being at college also tends to make people less conservative to some extent, being exposed to new ideas and people, and usually living in a denser, liberal community.

  2. Time-Soup-8924 Avatar

    True because academia has always been disproportionately left-leaning.  

    In order to be successful in academia one had to at least pay lip service to leftist ideas.

  3. rhomboidus Avatar

    Yes. That is a very consistent finding across time and many studies.

  4. eggs-benedryl Avatar

    Yea but it’s 54 percent at the postgrad level consider themselves liberal, so it’s not overwhelmingly the case it seems. That being said if you exclude centrists only 24 percent list themselves as conservative at all.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/

  5. binomine Avatar

    I’m going to say no, but with a catch. Reality has a liberal bias. It is absolutely true people end up homeless due to luck and innocent people go to prison, and the higher the education you have, the more likely you know about this stuff.

    That said, I kind of feel conservatism is a kind of method of thinking, rather than a thing to support. Conservatives who go into higher education mostly come out conservatives, but with a liberal bias rather than a liberal mindset.

  6. figsslave Avatar

    It’s true amongst my friends who have been to grad school at least.My friends with higher IQs regardless of education tend to be more liberal too

  7. Bobbob34 Avatar

    Yes.

    The more educated someone is the more exposed to and cognizant of different ideas, different people, cultures.

    Also, conservatives have larger amygdalas, which are basically the “fear centers” of the brain. Whether that’s because that makes ppl more conservative or being conservative grows it, we don’t know,

  8. silask93 Avatar

    Absolutely, because one thing you find especially if you watch things like “fall of civilizations” and just history itself youll see every previous dictator/tyrant used this same type of strategy, we need to make sure people are educated ao they dont fall for maggot level ideologies

  9. Internal-Syrup-5064 Avatar

    Depends on how you define education. Most colleges in the USA are dominated by liberal professors and administrators. And college students are impressionable as a rule, so it makes sense that kids who go to college will be molded into liberalism

  10. Ragnarsdad1 Avatar

    Generally speaking yes however there is a flip side to it. People with higher levels of education tend to earn more, people that earn more, people that own their own home etc tend to lean more conservative with age.

  11. fatboyfall420 Avatar

    Yes, going to college lets you meet lots of new people form all walks of life. The conservative view point falls apart when you meet the “bad” people and they aren’t bad.

  12. Radiant-Importance-5 Avatar

    Yes, but the important thing to remember is that this is a statistic, not a hard fact.

    More education makes it *more likely* that you will be more liberal, but being more educated does not *make* you more liberal. And vice-versa, less education makes it *more likely* that you will be more conservative, but being less educated does not *make* you more conservative. It’s important to remember that there are highly-educated conservatives and there are uneducated liberals.

  13. mytinykitten Avatar

    Yes.

    That’s a big reason why Republicans have demonized and defunded education.

    To be a Republican in today’s climate you either have to be evil or stupid. The evil ones are rich and rely on the stupid ones to keep them in power.

  14. VygotskyCultist Avatar

    That’s not EXACTLY it, but higher education does correlate with left-leaning politics

  15. Available-Leg-1421 Avatar

    Being conservative means being protective of yourself and everything that you currently know.

    As a person learns more about other people and ideas, they become more tolerant and understanding.