vicente

Which colleges are the most libertarian?

Where are the students that accept gays, interracial dating, abortions, and drugs, but want lower taxes, less gun control, and don't think the USA is evil?

Joejitsu

RE:

------------------
Which colleges are the most libertarian?
-----------------

I haven't really found a college that is culturally libertarian ( although conservatism is a close ECONOMIC cousin to it ).

In general , I find conservative colleges to be --- accepting of interracial dating, but frowning on homosexuality, abortion and drugs. Of course conservative colleges teach the virtue of lower taxes, minimal government, less gun control and do not blame America first.

(BTW, here's one gauge as to which colleges are liberal --- DO THEY WELCOME ROTC ON CAMPUS ? If the answer is NO, the culture is liberal ).

That said, there are LOTS of campuses where LIBERTARIANS are welcome.

Here is a list of campuses with significant libertarian presence :

Liberty Guide - Campus Organizations

limnath

RE: Libertarian Colleges

My daughter recently got accepted by Grove City College. I decided to find out a lot about the college and discovered that a lot of their professors are connected to the Libertarian Think Tank -- THE LUDWIG VON MISES INSTITUTE. Their long time head of the economics department, the late Hans Sennholz, was a foremost advocate of the Austrian School of Economics. They have lots of graduates who teach free market economics in various universities ( for instance, Dr. Peter Boetke and Dr. Walter Williams ( yes, the syndicated columnist and some time sub for Rush Limbaugh in his radio program used to teach there ) ).

According to Wikipedia, Because of its strong adherence to freedom and minimal government interference, Grove City College is considered to be one of America's foremost colleges that teach the ideas of the Austrian School of Economics.The post-1938 personal papers written by Ludwig Von Mises, the uncontested dean of the Austrian School of Economics, are collected in the archive of Grove City College.

So yes, the school's students and a lot of their professors are sympathetic to libertarian economics, however, when it comes to SOCIAL policy, they are still Christian ( i.e., they frown on drugs, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, abortion and the like ).

I guess you can't have everything you want.

Silly Puddy

Look, I took this "test", and let me tell you: it's the most shoddy research I have ever seen.

While walking into the dining halls, I was passed along this test. I asked the volunteer what it was. I was told that UConn wanted to test civic literacy, and that "Relax, it's not really a big deal. Don't really worry about it - just fill out whatever. It doesn't matter." Most people who received the test didn't quite know what to make of it (i.e. whether it was serious or not) and just tossed it out. One of my friends returned it blank out of protest for just how badly they were doing this research.

In any event, I hadn't really heard much of this study until now, and I'd figured it vanished into oblivion (as it should have). Given that the folks at UConn could not have received more than a 20% response rate from Princeton and given that their results are most likely a mish mash of every flavor of statistical error and bias, I have very serious doubts about the scholarly merits of this.

Joejitsu

You may critique the study all you like as shoddy and all that, but the study has been done TWICE ( 2006 and 2007) and the methodology is presented for any researcher or statistician or educator to see.

This include questionaire design, questionaire pilot, and verification methods.
The names of the implementors are shown on the website as well.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute commissioned Prof. Ken Dautrich and Mr. Chris Barnes of the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP) to conduct this field study of undergraduate civic literacy. A representative sample of 25 schools was randomly selected from all four-year colleges and universities, and an over-sample of 25 elite schools was also chosen. Barnes oversaw the sampling and data collection. Heather Mitchell assisted in analyzing the findings and drafting the report. ISI’s Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Gary Scott, independently corroborated the statistical analyses in addition to testing hypotheses using regression analysis.

Dautrich and Barnes are internationally recognized for their public opinion research with projects ranging from international studies to local community surveys.


See here :

Civic Literacy Report - Survey Methods

The study is continually being refined as well based on critical input.

Alexandre

"Which colleges are the most libertarian?"

Amherst College
Claremont McKenna College
College of William & Mary
Dartmouth College
Emory University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Rice University
Stanford University
Tufts University
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Texas-Austin
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Williams College
Yale University

Silly Puddy

Thanks for the link. If you click on it, though, you'll note that neither the set of questions nor, more importantly, something as basic to survey results as the response rate has been posted.

Now, I'm wondering the last time I've seen a serious survey where the response rate hasn't been included in the results. This is a pretty important number. If 95% of of participants in a survey group responded, you can say "okay, this survey begins to reflect the target demographic". On the other hand, if, say, only 10% of randomly picked students bother responding, then chances are that the survey is going to tell you diddly squat about the group you're studying. So when researchers want to be taken seriously, they include their response rate. Bizarrely enough, the researchers involved in this survey don't include this number. Can I ask why?

I've told you that as a respondent to this survey, I saw that maybe 20% of my peers responded to this casually administered survey, which makes it close to worthless as a work of true research value. The fact that ISI/UConn chose not to disclose this number leads me to wonder if this was the case everywhere. If so, I'd suggest you not rely so much on this survey as evidence in your arguments.

I'll take your word for it. I have no reason to doubt these men themselves. But as I've said, there are real big holes in their case.

So the ISI commissioned this study, and then the ISI "independently corroborated" the results?

Look, this would be fine and well if the ISI were a universally respected research group or something, but you and I both know that this is far from the case. The ISI is a distinctly conservative group with distinctly conservative agenda. I know this well enough because I've been on their e-mail list for the last year or two (don't ask...). Here's a little excerpt from their last e-mail, sent four days ago:

http://tinyurl.com/25xpg3

Really now: what non partisan group holds an event titled "Was Ronald Reagan a Great President?" and gives out free conservative women's calendars (whatever that is)?

Mind you, I'm far from a bleeding heart liberal (I wouldn't be on the ISI e-mail list if I were). But I just want to say that it's probably going to be a while before a study done by so conservative an organization as the ISI without any outside check and questionable research practices is going to be the silver bullet argument that "those dirty hippie elite liberal colleges don't teach civics".

Tigers Rule

The most civilized (clean,common sense,manners,tradition,conservative) are Hampden-Sydney and W&L.

Joejitsu

RE:

---------------
So the ISI commissioned this study, and then the ISI "independently corroborated" the results?

Look, this would be fine and well if the ISI were a universally respected research group or something, but you and I both know that this is far from the case. The ISI is a distinctly conservative group with distinctly conservative agenda
--------------------------

And who said that the ISI is not a respected group ? Just because you put a label "conservative" to it means -- what ? That their study is bogus ?

I might was well reason that any liberal outfit that produces a study is a shoddy outfit because they're well -- liberal.

As for the 20% who casually responded to the study, well what can I say ? Either --- that has been TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT in their study; or, the fact that they were taken casually simply says a lot about the ATTITUDE of those takign the survey. Why not simply NOT take the survey instead of
taking it casually ?

Good surveyors "know" to adjust the results of their study and factor in the so called casual responses in their survey. This is true of Gallup, Pew and Quinipiac's pollings. I am quite certain that these guys aren't so dumb as to not take the factor into account.

The point is this --- The ISI COMMISSIONED the University of Connecticut (which is NOT known to be conservative, and is a PUBLIC university ) to do the study.

Their methodology is OPEN for those who want to look at it to critique it.

I personally looked at the questionaire they put out and I believe it is a FAIR way of assessing general civic knowledge.

If you want to critique their study and their methodology, go ahead -- show me in what statistical, methodological way their study is bogus, but please, two arguments don't wash :

1) They are "conservative", therefore, their study is shoddy;

2) I don't like the results, therefore it is shoddy.

jessiehl

At MIT, the major political split (in my experience) is between the liberals and the libertarians, with some on the edge or split (e.g. someone who is economically liberal but wants less gun control). The dorm-lounge discussions and arguments are good fun.

fencersmother

One thing to consider when regarding these surveys and result reports:

A liberal-minded person will consider a college to be conservative if there happens to be a large pro-life contingent on campus, no matter what other political views are held by the students or faculty at the school. For instance, at Franciscan U. of Steubenville, which appears on many lists as very conservative, the only thing they are really conservative about is the pro-life issue. Socially, many at this college are imbued in the policies of Catholic Social Thought and Social Justice, both of which would normally be considered quite liberal.

On tolerance, I think the item which put the nail in the liberal coffin for me was when Gov. Bob Casey, a democratic governor of PA who was also pro-life, was denied the platform at the DNC convention because he wanted to speak on pro-life issues. No tolerance there. They can't even let a man speak for 5 minutes on this issue - so fearful are they that one of their pro-abortion sheep might change his/her mind.

dntw8up

I never met anyone who is pro-abortion or anti-life, though I know many people who are pro-choice.

Joejitsu

Since liberal colleges outnumber conservative colleges in this country,
here's another list from Newsmax that conservatives might want to consider :

Top 10 Colleges for American Values

zarathustra

U Chicago is the one elite univeristy that has been sympathetic to politics of the right of center. It's not really "conservative" ala Rush Limbaugh but a mix of the hyper libertarians in the Econ department (Friedman, Hayek, Becker), the Straussians in Philosophy/Classics/Poli-Sci/where ever Straussians go (Strauss himself, Allan Bloom, maybe Bellow, Leon Kass) and the legal strict constructionists (Scalia, Bork, Ashcroft, Epstein) make it a friendlier environment to right of center ideas. More famous right of center intellectuals are associated with the Univeristy of Chicago than any other elite school anywhere.

The notion that their is an innate correlation between intelligence and political ideology is dubious at best. The poster who stated as much (for careers in academia and media (when the media is considered intellectual and the arbitors of actual truth, I'll eat Chris Mathews's pen)) fails to take into consideration the biases in the hiring process. I know that my parents were both once in academia, but because of their ideology are now radioactive. My mother has a PhD in Political Science from the Univeristy of Chicago with a specialization in the politics of Japan, and she was passed over for a full time facutly position at the University of Wisconsin for a man with a PhD in Asian studies from Rutgers. She had, at the time, published 8 full length academic books on Politics in Japan and she was passed over because of her politics. And my father, PhD in Sociology from Chicago, did not have his contract renewed (as a full time professor) with Syracuse because of his politics. Even though he had taught Sociology courses at Johns Hopkins and Smith College, Syracuse thought he wasn't qualified for the position. Political bias is a dangerous creature.

SerendipityRing

dntw8up -- how could you have "never met" anyone who's pro-abortion? you've never heard people say "she shouldn't have had the kid" when looking at young teenage mothers? did you not read the news about jamie lynn spears? a LOT of people are "pro-abortion," especially when it comes to young mothers.