[Inspired by the forward-thinking former Harvard University President Derek Bok, Thinking out of the Bok is an occasional forum for the presentation of ideas about higher education. This entry is provided by a culture and education commentator.]
Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock begins her recent essay in The Atlantic by admitting, "Across the country, people are questioning the value and role of higher education, and institutions . . . are experiencing a crisis in public trust. On top of that, tech titans are convinced that AI will break higher education, while many observers lament its corrupting influence and ask whether the 'mind-expanding purpose and qualities of a university' . . . are gone forever." Although Beilock's essay turns to a philosophical message about higher education's role in society, recent political events have many focusing on the causes and consequences of diminishing diversity of thought on college campuses. A new study by researchers at Miami University (OH), Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University that is quickly spreading across the internet examines the role of students' political views in shaping their college enrollment decisions. Using four decades of survey data on college freshmen, the researchers document increasing political polarization among college and university student bodies. For example, between 2006 and 2019, the percentage of college students who consider themselves conservative/far right has fallen from just above 25% to below 20%. Over the same period, the percentage of college students who consider themselves liberal/far left has risen from just over 30% to almost 38%. What's more, student bodies at the so-called elite institutions, like the one Beilock leads, have lurched the furthest left. By 2019, more than 50% of students at the most selective colleges identified as liberal/far left, compared with about 33% at other schools. The researchers go even further by conducting survey-based choice experiments about the college choice decision that quantify the value students place on political alignment relative to factors such as cost and proximity. To conduct these experiments, students were presented with profiles of hypothetical colleges, with each profile including information about academics, location, cost, and the political makeup of the student body. Based on the choices made by the students upon conducting the experiments, the researchers discovered that liberal/far left students are willing to pay a tuition premium of $2,617 for a 10-percentage point decrease in the share of conservative/far right students on their college campus, while conservative/far right students are willing to pay a tuition premium of $2,201 for a 10-percentage point decrease in the share of liberal/far left students on their college campus. On the other side of the coin, liberal/far left students are willing to pay a tuition premium of $1,162 for a 10-percentage point increase in the share of liberal/far left students on their college campus, while conservative/far right students are not willing to pay a tuition premium for a 10-percentage point increase in the share of conservative/far right students on their college campus. Put differently, these results indicate that liberal students are willing to pay a tuition premium to be around more like-minded peers, and that both conservative and liberal students are willing to pay a tuition premium to avoid those who disagree with them. As striking as these results are on their own, the stated tuition premiums above are shown by the researchers to be roughly equivalent to the tuition premium students are willing to pay for higher academic quality. Results like these, if accurate, call into question the relevance of the academy itself. If the academy is to remain relevant and move forward, it's incumbent upon university leaders like Beilock and others to institute changes that really reverse the historical trends described above and findings like those from the choice experiments detailed in the new study.
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