What college should I go to? Applicants avoid entire states because of their politics

More than one-quarter of college applicants have ruled out a school solely because of the political climate in its state, a new survey finds. 

And those concerns span the political spectrum.  

Liberal applicants exclude colleges in states with restrictive abortion laws or lenient gun laws, the survey found. Conservative students avoid applying to schools in states with liberal LGBTQ laws and lenient crime statutes.   

The findings come from a survey released Monday by Art & Science Group, a consulting and research firm that serves the higher-education sector. 

“For a student to say, ‘I’m willing to rule out a state, a school in a state,’ before they even decide where to apply, that’s a strong indication of how important these issues are to young people,” said Nanci Tessier, principal at Art & Science Group. 

In recent years, college leaders have grown wary of partisan state politics scaring off prospective applicants at a time when college enrollments are flagging.  

Some applicants reject a college because of its address

Earlham College is a national liberal arts school in Richmond, Indiana, a state where abortion is now illegal in most cases. Some prospective applicants have told admissions officers at Earlham that they would not apply to the school because of its address. 

“It’s rare, but we do hear it,” said Paul Sniegowski, president of Earlham.  

That’s a problem, he said. One solution, Sniegowski suggested, is for Earlham and all of academia to leverage political division as an opportunity to learn. 

“When you go to college,” he said, “it’s really about encountering difference, and thinking about difference.” 

Partisan state politics pose a challenge, especially for institutions that draw students from across the nation, researchers say. Roughly three-quarters of students still attend college in their own states, Tessier said. 

Conservative applicants avoid California; liberals skirt Florida

College applicants who avoid states for political reasons seem most likely to eschew places with high-profile politics and political leaders. Conservative students are most likely to rule out New York and California, Art & Science Group found. Liberal students are most likely to reject Texas and Florida, along with Arkansas and Tennessee.  

The notion that some college applicants avoid entire states because of their politics had long percolated as a rumor in admission circles.  

In early 2023, Art & Science Group decided to see if the rumor reflected reality. They created a survey, the first of its kind, according to leaders of the consultancy. That study inspired others, including a second survey from Art & Science Group. 

“It seems that most students, most of the time, are considering politics as a factor when choosing a college,” said Jarrett Smith, senior vice president of strategy at Echo Delta, another higher education marketing and consulting firm that has studied the issue. “And it is on par with more tried and true factors, like academic quality, academic reputation and student life.” 

Generations of applicants, presumably, have rejected colleges, states and entire regions for political reasons.  

But local politics took on new urgency in college admissions in 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, the researchers said. Many conservative states responded by curbing abortion rights. 

The new Art & Science report is based on spring surveys of 1,579 high-school seniors who said they planned to attend college this fall. The research came months ahead of a blockbuster election that has thrust abortion rights, gun laws and partisan politics back atop the news cycle.  

“The election was six months away,” Tessier said. “We wanted to see if their feelings had become stronger or had lessened over time,” compared with the earlier survey. 

The new report demonstrates that college applicants are more concerned than ever about state politics. In the first survey, 24% of students said they excluded colleges in certain states for political reasons. In the second, that quotient rose to 28%.  

Abortion laws concern both Democrat and Republican students

Abortion rights and gun laws are top of mind for many students, regardless of their political identity, researchers say.

Another recent survey, conducted by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, found that abortion laws matter to most current and prospective college students: 81% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans. Of that group, most respondents said they would rather attend college in a state with less restrictive abortion laws: 63% of Republicans and 86% of Democrats. The poll reached nearly 7,000 Americans in late 2023. 

In the same survey, 80% of respondents said campus gun regulations were important in their decision to enroll at a school. Of that group, most respondents said they prefer more restrictive gun laws: 71% of Republicans and 91% of Democrats. 

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“Even in more conventionally conservative states, these policies aren’t particularly popular, at least with the students we surveyed,” said Zach Hrynowski, a senior education researcher at Gallup, alluding to restrictive abortion statutes and lenient gun laws.  

A third area of political concern for college students and applicants is “divisive concepts.”  

In a 2020 executive order, then-President Donald Trump enumerated topics that could not be discussed in training federal employees, including the idea that the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist. Many states attempted to replicate the policy in public colleges and universities, Gallup and Lumina report. 

A large majority of students and prospective students factor those policies into their enrollment decisions, the survey found. Most of that group, Democrats and Republicans alike, said they would rather attend college in a state that does not restrict instruction on race and gender. 

Liberal and conservative college applicants have different worries

The latest poll from Art & Science Group focuses more on partisan differences among college applicants.  

Their findings suggest liberal students are somewhat more concerned about state politics than conservative applicants: 35% of liberal applicants said they excluded states from their college search because of political leanings, compared with 29% of conservatives. 

The Art & Science Group survey also found that liberal and conservative applicants worry about different things.  

Liberal applicants cited a long list of concerns with conservative states, including their stances on abortion rights, LGBTQ laws, gun legislation, racial equity, climate policies and cannabis laws.  

Conservative students rejected states less for specific policies and more from fear of an overarching liberalism, which the survey defined as being “too Democratic.” Conservative applicants also voiced concern about liberal LGBTQ laws and lenience on crime. 

A significant share of liberal students also said they avoided states that are “too lenient on crime,” echoing a top concern among their conservative peers. 

Most college-bound students don't see themselves as very partisan

One reason why college applicants are sensitive to state politics, research suggests, is that most college-bound students don’t see themselves as particularly partisan, even if many identify with a political party.

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Half of college-bound students identify as political moderates, according to a survey released earlier this year by the Echo Delta consultancy. Only about 10% of prospective college students consider themselves highly politically active. 

The Echo Delta survey, conducted in March, reached 1,044 high school students planning to attend college within three years. 

Echo Delta researchers found students most apprehensive about applying to college in high-profile red and blue states: California and New York for conservatives; and for liberals, Texas, Florida and much of the South.  

“One of our clients,” a college in Florida, “was able to point to no fewer than 50 students who said, ‘I like your school, but I’m not going there because of state politics,’” Smith said.