Today's college graduates have a far less favorable view of their country than in decades past. Conservatives say it's because of what they're being taught.
On college campuses, you're more apt to find students and professors critical of American values, policies, and capitalism. Why? Polls like from the American Enterprise Institute suggest for decades, academia has had more liberal professors than conservatives ones. According to the AEI, the ratio of liberal professors to conservative ones has doubled over the last three decades.
“People on the right tend to want to go into private business and don’t want to take a pay cut to become a professor,” Chase Bradstreet, the president of Houston Young Republicans, said. “That or they view [academia] as already a lost cause and subject themselves to the ideological conformity.”
Conservatives says it's going to be an uphill battle to reverse anti-American sentiment on college campuses. A 2019 Gallup poll, before the pandemic, found just half of college age adults are either extremely or very proud of their country. Bradstreet says solving the problem will take leadership.
“Have strong governors who are willing to put pressure on university chancellors to make sure that there’s an even playing field, to eliminate critical race theory, diversity programs,” he explained.