The tie between college and liberals

name: Joshua
topic: politics/education
posting number 2
title of article:Does college make you liberal-- or do liberals make colleges?
author:Chris Mooney
publication name: Huffingtonpost
date of publication: march 1st 2012
length of article: 955 words

This article delves into the claim made by Rick Santorum that college makes people less religious. Santorum goes even further to claim that colleges are “indoctrination mills” where conservatives are punished for their views. Though Santorum repeatedly claims that 62% of individuals with religious affiliations entering college stray from their religion after their college experience, his statistics were found to be extremely errant. Recent studies have found that those who do not attend college are, in fact, more likely (by 12%) to leave their religion than are those who attend college. Though it is difficult and complex to try and correlate religion and a university degree, it has been found, over all, that on average, “education positively affects religious participation”.

Now on Santorum’s second point, the article concedes that colleges and the world of academia, science specifically, tends to be more liberal than conservative. The article poses, however, that this is due to the fact that liberals and conservatives have different goals in life, economically and educationally. The article claims that while liberals value pedagogy more for the sake of learning and thus are more likely to stay within the world of academia, conservatives aim more to attain economical preeminence and thus shy away from long stays in colleges and tend to gravitate more towards the world of business. Chris Mooney claims that this is the reason for the discrepancy and thus it is not so much that colleges breed liberals as much as it is that liberals tend to “make colleges” as they are the ones who really stay for longer strides and are, generally, more likely to go on to obtain graduate and doctorate degrees.

Chris Mooney claims that colleges and the world of academia in general is a place where liberals are more at ease because of their end goals. He also ties this aspect of colleges to science noting that scientific inquiry is analogous to a college experience sought after by liberals. He thus generalizes that some conservatives will always feel uneasy about this system. It is essential to note that Chris Mooney is an acclaimed author who has written about the conservative attack on science. It is thus important to realize the bias going into this article and the way the facts are portrayed. It does, however, present an interesting phenomena occurring in colleges throughout the nation, and the reasons behind it.

Mooney, Chris. "Does College Make You Liberal -- or Do Liberals Make Colleges?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 03 May 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. mooney/does-college-make-you-lib_b_1312889.html?ref=science>.