Jarrett Smith’s Post

A survey of high school juniors and seniors finds that the political climates of states increasingly influence their college admissions and decisions processes, additionally finding that about 1 in 4 will take their parents' political views into account when choosing colleges. #GreatCollegeAdvice #CollegeAdmissions #CollegeDecisions

How did you decide where to go to college? I remember thinking way too much about the weather, telling my family that the entire northeast was off the table🤦♀️. Unlike 28% of college-bound students today, politics didn’t enter my mind! Digging through the data with our research team, especially Lisa Simmons, Ph.D. and Olubukola Akanbi, D.Sc., to pull this issue of #studentPOLL together was fascinating. A few findings I thought were particularly interesting: - Reason most conservative students exclude states from their college search: “too Democratic” - Reason most liberal students exclude states from their college search: “too conservative abortion and reproductive laws” - Many top reasons students are excluding states have a significantly higher proportion of students saying they excluded states for that reason this year, as compared to last year. In other words, the intensity of feelings around these issues seems to have increased. We hypothesized this is due to a heightened political climate as Election Day approaches, but will have to see what we find in upcoming issues of #studentPOLL to know for sure!

The latest edition of #studentPOLL answers the questions: Who’s ruling out institutions for political considerations? At what point? For what reasons? Do prospective students think colleges and universities should participate in political issues, or stay neutral? How do prospective students view preference-based admissions policies (legacy, athletes, race-conscious admissions, etc.)? https://lnkd.in/eiwef5Di

Love how this WSJ article provides context to this complex issue. Thoughts?

I'm thrilled to announce the release of our latest research: The Politics of College Choice: How Students' Political Views Influence Where They Enroll. In this nation-wide study of college-bound high school juniors and seniors, we explore: -Students' political affiliations -The specific ways they believe college and state politics could impact their college experience -How students gauge the political climate of a state and college -The extent to which parents' political views impact college choice -How students feel about free speech and campus neutrality on divisive issues -Steps colleges can take to reassure apprehensive students A very special thanks to my brilliant research partner and co-author, Grant De Roo, who crafted our study and uncovered so many unique insights; the wildly talented Emelie P., Jenna MacFarlane, and Rachel Lee Newell, who turned our sticky notes and slides into something both beautiful and useful; Dion Spires, PMP, who made sure we delivered on time; and Jeff Kallay, who provided the inspiration for this topic. 🔗 in comments

Help your students have difficult conversations about what’s happening in the world! Read this piece highlighting six ways to encourage robust political discussions on college campuses:

Are you curious about the evolving landscape of trust in higher education? Read this interesting essay from The Wall Street Journal, which explores reasons why Americans have lost faith in the value of college. Understanding the history and context behind this issue is crucial for anyone involved in academia or concerned about its societal impact. Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/d4ucWvbh #highered #history #studentsuccess #facultysuccess #societalimpact

Colleges should consider their appeal to students of different political persuasions, but remaining true to mission, values, and enduring identity is key. In my latest article on Volt, I dive into two strategic questions to ask when navigating state, campus, and student politics. https://lnkd.in/g7W49Qea

Does this reflect the growing perception of lack of value in a college degree?

Very interesting paper in the new issue of the American Economic Review (WP version here: https://shorturl.at/QCdXz) about politically correct speech and how PC hampers public discussion and exchange of viewpoints and information. Lucas Braghieri's experiments conducted in the UC system suggest that when speech is public, students are .13 standard dev more politically correct. This may not be that surprising. In fact, listeners understand this! They make attempts to adjust for "noisy" politically correct speech. However, since they cannot exactly know how privately held beliefs map to publically espoused beliefs, politically correct speech becomes less informative! Abstract A prominent argument in the political correctness debate is that people feel pressure to publicly espouse sociopolitical views they do not privately hold, and that such misrepresentations might render public discourse less vibrant and informative. This paper formalizes the argument in terms of social image and evaluates it experimentally in the context of college campuses. The results show that (i) social image concerns drive a wedge between the sensitive sociopolitical attitudes that college students report in private and in public; (ii) public utterances are indeed less informative than private utterances; and (iii) information loss is exacerbated by (partial) audience naïveté. https://lnkd.in/dSwQVwbV