As political tensions between the left vs. right and blue vs. red divide American citizens as always, a major backbone of the debate continues to be disputes over education levels between the Democrats and Republicans. Trends in data and statistics show that higher levels of education lead to association with a particular political party more than than the other.
“With the states that tend to have lower education levels, they tend to be more conservative, while the ones that have higher education levels tend to be more liberal,” said Raina Mcauliffe (‘27).
While it is true that schools, universities and educational institutions in general can shape a person’s moral and political standing, it is not the only factor that does. A lot more comes into play when a person consciously chooses to affiliate themselves with an ideology they can get behind. Society and the people around us heavily influence how an individual forms opinions and thoughts.
“I definitely think that family creates kind of a barrier between someone’s political views and the thing that I guess you’d say is politically correct, until that person becomes an adult and they actually try to see outside of that,” said Mcauliffe.
The internet, another possibly polarizing factor present in everyone’s lives, can be the most useful tool to gather information and form opinions. Of course, however, a lot of information on the web and social media can often be inaccurate or lead to misinformed radicalization.
“I feel like for some reason, a bunch of high schoolers read up on a couple terms like communism, republican, liberal, and immediately put three words in their head for each definition and immediately go online or they go to a debate and they only use those specific words. Some people don’t know what any of the words they’re saying actually means in general. I feel like people usually get their information from TikTok,” said Roz A. Alwadi (‘28).
Still, the fake news that floats around constantly has led people to the conclusion that a certain political stance is definitively superior for the advancement of society over the other. It has also led to mistrust in and apprehension to a lot of news and news channels in general because it is almost impossible to tell what is propaganda these days or not.
“One side could be way better [for the community] than the other… I don’t like the lies that are spread about certain things,” said Dakota Lockhart (‘29).
Overall, education establishments can definitely influence social and political standings, but they are not the only reasons behind it. A person’s geopolitical location, family, and the internet can influence a lot of their individual views.
“You can’t categorize one person as one category of people as something specific even if it does sound true. [It can be] a personal opinion, it’s not always going to be true,” said Alwadi.
