Study: College freshmen move left on key issues By Mary Beth Marklein,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Milton, Delaware, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 28, 2012 -- The percentage of entering college freshmen who say they are liberal or conservative has not changed much over the past few years, but a growing number of this year's first-year students describe themselves as middle-of-the-road, an annual survey shows. Yet their answers to several questions on political and social issues showed a leftward shift in their views.

"Given the influence of young voters in the last presidential election, candidates may want to pay careful attention to the student perspective," says John Pryor, director of UCLA's Cooperative Institutional Research Program, which released survey findings this week.

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This year's survey was based on responses of 203,967 first-time, full-time students at 270 colleges and universities.

President Obama energized young voters in the 2008 campaign and was greeted by huge crowds on college campuses across the country. He won 66% of the vote among voters 18 to 29, according to exit polls. Recent studies show turnout among young voters is likely to drop in the 2012 election.

In the survey, more freshmen who described themselves as conservative said they supported same-sex marriage and legal abortion than in the past few years. Among all first-year students, 71.3% said they agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to be legally married, up "a remarkable" 6.4 percentage points since 2009, says the survey.

In another finding relevant to the current political climate, the percentage of freshmen who believe undocumented students should be denied access to public education dropped to 43% from 47.2% in 2009.

Although most of the shift occurred among students who describe themselves as liberal, 39% of self-described conservative students supported access to public education for undocumented students. The number of students supporting affirmative action in college admissions increased to 42.1%, up from 37.4% in 2009.

Here's how students characterize their political views:

27.6% said they were liberal, down from 29% in 2009.
20.7% said they were conservative, down from 21.8% in 2009.
47.4% said they were middle-of-the-road, up from 44.4% in 2009.
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