Centerfield

what does this survey tell you?

Via the Volokh Conspiracy, I ran across a report on a survey that revealed that American college students are now more conservative than the general public:

More than two-thirds of the students surveyed are registered to vote -- and eight in 10 said they would vote in 2004. As a whole, 18- to 24-year-olds are less than half as likely to vote as college students. Perhaps surprisingly, 31 percent of college students identify themselves as Republicans, while 27 percent call themselves Democrats and 38 percent independent or unaffiliated.

"College campuses aren't a hotbed of liberalism anymore," Glickman said. "It's a different world."

The general population is significantly more Democratic -- about 36 percent of Americans consider themselves Democrats, 27 percent Republicans, 20 percent independents or third-party loyalists, and the rest have no preference, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

Go ahead and read the whole thing, it's interesting stuff. But note that this is the sort of thing that can be reported in a variety of ways depending on the wing nut doing the reporting. I'm not the guy that's going to bemoan a decline of liberalism on campus, because that's got a lot to do with chickens starting to come home to roost. My point is that if you're not a partisan, maybe your reaction should be "Hey! Look at all the independents!"

Posted by Brian Keegan at October 28, 2003 07:53 PM