Title.
Would appreciate any thoughts from experienced parents or students.
Some schools manifest this pretty clearly, others not so much. No or wrong answer here (really) just curious.
TIA.
No experience - but what Niche shows - granted small sample. I think most big schools - politics are there or not based on your desire to have them (or not). Good luck.
How would you describe your personal political beliefs?
Based on 49 responses
- Very conservative
2%
- Conservative
2%
- Moderate
41%
- Liberal
33%
- Very liberal
10%
- I don’t care about politics
12%
How would you describe the political beliefs of the campus as a whole?
Based on 49 responses
- Conservative
14%
- Balanced
51%
- Liberal
27%
- Not sure
8%
D21 is a junior at SLO. I’m not sure what is meant about “political culture or bent,” but there are groups which occasionally hold a protest or hand out leaflets. It’s a college campus.
SLO is one of the more politically conservative public school campuses in CA, when compared to Cal or Santa Cruz. That’s likely due to the large Ag college.
But SLO is still overwhelmingly liberal, and that includes D21.
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Of course. But not all campus communities are the same in this regard.
Thanks for your thoughts.
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Overall, I think the school leans liberal as does the city of SLO but the surrounding cities and SLO County is mostly conservative. There is a conservative club on campus that hosts people like Charlie Kirk to speak but that’s probably true of most colleges. The Ag school has a high concentration of conservative students but they are in the minority. There is also a SIGNIFICANT lack of diversity on campus and in SLO, sadly. Our oldest son went to UCLA and always comments about the lack of diversity when he’s back in SLO. UCLA was more “political” than Cal Poly SLO. Our youngest son (who has lived in the SLO bubble all his life) recently went to Berkeley and was amazed by the diversity. It was eye-opening for him and he wants to leave SLO to experience other communities even though he was accepted to Cal Poly. But SLO and the surrounding area is gorgeous and it is a safe community. There are a lot of positive things about living here!
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Wow this is super helpful and much appreciated - thank you!
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I’m a first year at Cal Poly and would say it’s very apolitical here. Yes there is an occasional protest but always comprised of less than 20 people. Students here outside of specific clubs are not engaged politically in my opinion, which I believe stems largely from the lack of diversity here. And the large ag population definitely lends to a large conservative population here but again its not really felt as a student. The SLO bubble is real.
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