By conventional wisdom, college students tend to be more politically liberal than the general population. However, a new survey by Harvard University's Institute of Politics suggests otherwise.
The poll, conducted last month, found that 61 percent of the respondents approved of President Bush's performance. It included undergraduate students from around the country. Bush's approval rating was only 53 percent, according to a poll of people around the country conducted in the same month by ABC and The Washington Post.
According to the poll, 31 percent said they are Republicans, 27 percent identified themselves as Democrats, and 38 percent said they do not affiliate themselves with a party.
The percentage of undergraduates who believe elected officials are motivated by selfish reasons dropped to 64 percent, according to the Harvard poll, compared to 74 percent who reported this belief in a similar poll conducted in April 2000. When asked of their voting plans for the 2004 election, 39 percent said they would vote for Bush, 34 percent said they would vote for the Democratic candidate, 18 percent are undecided, and 9 percent plan to vote for a different party candidate.
Also, 56 percent said that they would definitely vote in the 2004 election, and 26 percent said they would probably vote. According to the Federal Election Commission, 51 percent of the voting-age population in the United States voted in the 2000 election.
AU College Democrats President Noah Black attributes these findings to the Republican majority in Congress.
"It is difficult to convey a straight message from the Democratic minority in Congress," Black said, "Therefore, people don't understand all of the wrong the President and Republicans have done."
Black said that he is not surprised by the findings but thinks AU's campus is typically liberal.
"Lately there has been an upswing in Republican support at universities, but thankfully not here at American University," Black said. "We still hold a strong advantage over Republicans."
College Republicans President Ibbie Hedrick believes the findings show a commonly predicted trend.
"Undergraduate students are opening their eyes to conservatism like never before," Hedrick said.
She was still somewhat surprised by the findings.
"We've known that there are more conservative-minded students out there, but it is impressive that they were willing to categorize and define themselves for the poll," Hedrick said.
She believes that the discrepancy between college undergraduates and the general population is because of the varying levels of attentiveness between the two groups.
"Students are more likely to pay attention to current events than ever before," Hedrick said. "They are most affected by the 24-hour news cycle, receiving full political news via e-mail, the television and even cellular phones. This helps them differentiate between disinformation from the left and the truth about the conservative agenda and the positive progress that is being made daily."
AU senior Loic Diels was also surprised by the findings.
"I've always assumed college students to be more liberal than conservative, but I don't usually make much of surveys anyway," Diels said.
The poll was coordinated and published by SDS Prime, a research firm based in Boston and D.C.
