Published by Iowa Starting Line
One in four high school seniors say they’re eliminating some colleges from their searches because of the politics of the state the school is in, according to a new student poll conducted this year by Art & Science Group.
Around 24% of all students surveyed said they were making college decisions based on a state’s politics, including 31% of liberal-leaning students and 28% of conservative-leaning ones. The poll was conducted in January and February of this year.
Liberal students’ top concern was if a state was “too Republican,” while conservative students’ top concern was “too Democratic.”
Liberal students also said they would refuse to attend a school if a state had abortion restrictions, discriminatory LGBTQ laws, eroding racial equity, lax gun laws and a lack of support for mental health—all of which would apply to Iowa in recent years.
Conservative students similarly said they would refuse to attend a college if a state had liberal LGBTQ laws, the right to an abortion, or a perception that right-leaning voices would be silenced.
Both liberal- and conservative-leaning students reacted negatively to “too conservative on abortion and reproductive rights,” and almost a third of the respondents (32%) said they’d rule out their home state based on politics or the legal landscape, and
Here are Iowa’s positions on issues keeping liberal students away.
…