A sociologist who has been tracking the polarization of higher education for twenty years reveals how students are navigating the campus culture wars, what they wish their professors would do differently, and why they’re actually afraid of saying what they think.
American universities are at the center of a political firestorm. Between attacks on DEI programming, dwindling enrollment in the humanities, questions about the value of a college education, funding cuts, and battles over woke activism and liberal indoctrination, the campus culture wars are raging. Or are they? Pundits are having a field day, but the experience on campus is a far cry from what the culture warriors would have us believe.
A sociologist who has spent the last twenty years tracking the growing politicization of higher ed, Neil Gross decided it was time to give those with the most at stake a chance to speak for themselves. Beginning in the spring of 2024, he launched a massive investigation into how our polarized politics have remade the college experience, interviewing hundreds of students across the country and polling thousands more. He looked at liberal arts colleges, state schools, faith-based institutions and elite universities and combed through studies tracking everything from campus dating habits to changes in syllabi.
What he found was startling: undergraduates today are choosing their schools, their friends, their partners and activities–even their majors—on the basis of their political beliefs to a degree unimaginable as recently as ten years ago, with the goal of interacting as little as possible with anyone whose views don’t line up with their own. Popular campus dating apps invite you to swipe left if you don’t like someone’s political profile—a metaphor for today’s college experience writ large. Instead of resisting this trend, faculty and administrators encouraged it, creating a cloistered environment where students could avoid uncomfortable disagreement.
What Happened to College? paints a stark picture of an educational system in crisis and eager for change. Gross points to places where open debate and friendship across political lines still thrive. What are they doing right? Can we teach college students to disagree better? At a time of growing political stridency, nothing could be more necessary.