<p>I think it’s cute how all these 18-year-olds think the political views that they have grown up with in the bosoms of their families are an immutable part of their identities. Um, no. People actually change their views in college, often a lot.</p>
<p>By and large, they tend to move leftward. That was true – even more true than it is today – long before college faculties were dominated by liberals. Some move to the right. I think that people who come out of political monocultures – like Southern Republicans or Pennsylvania Quakers – tend to find themselves challenged and attracted by the variety of intelligent positions all over the political spectrum that they encounter in college.</p>
<p>My kids have several friends who came out of solidly left-wing Quaker schools here (and solidly left-wing families) who became hard-core free-market conservative/libertarians in college. On the other side, I know a family where the parents were rock-solid Republican bankers in rural Nebraska. Kid #1 went to Yale, and became liberal. The parents were terribly upset. Kid #2 was not allowed to apply to college anywhere in the Northeast or California. She went to Duke, and became liberal. Kid #3 was not given any option other than the University of Nebraska. Guess what? Liberal, too. She wound up moving to New York.</p>