"College students are willing to pay more than an additional $2,000 in tuition to attend a college where fewer students hold political beliefs that oppose their own, according to a new working paper analyzing how students' political views impact college choice. Researchers conducted an experiment in which current college students were presented the details of hypothetical institutions of higher education, including academic quality, location, cost and the political makeup of the student body. From there, they were asked which institution they'd prefer to attend."
"On average, liberal students indicated they would be willing to pay $2,617 more to attend a college with a 10-percentage-point lower share of conservative students, and conservative students indicated they would be willing to pay $2,201 for a 10-percentage-point lower share of liberal students. Those numbers are about on par with how much students would be willing to spend based on other characteristics, like better academic quality or a location closer to home."
"Student bodies have also become more polarized over the past several decades. The researchers analyzed about 40 years of the Freshman Survey from the University of California, Los Angeles's Higher Education Research Institute, which includes the political leanings of over 15 million first-year college students. They found that colleges that leaned liberal in the 1980s have grown more liberal, at least among their freshman classes; the same is true for colleges that leaned conservative."
Students place substantial value on campus political alignment, often comparable to academic quality or proximity. An experiment presented current college students with hypothetical institutions varying academic quality, location, cost, and student political makeup and asked for attendance preferences. Liberal students on average would pay $2,617 more for a college with a 10-percentage-point lower share of conservative peers, while conservative students would pay $2,201 for a 10-point lower share of liberal peers. Analysis of roughly 40 years of UCLA HERI Freshman Survey data covering over 15 million first-year students shows colleges that leaned liberal or conservative in the 1980s have become more ideologically concentrated.
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