Why Are Graduates More Socially Liberal? Estimating the Effect of Higher Education on Political Values Through Variation in University Experience

Abstract

Previous research has found that attending university results in an individual being more socially liberal and less racially prejudiced, accounting for a variety of alternative explanations. Yet what is it about university that induces this change in political values? This is the question this article addresses, by investigating three variations in university experience – degree subject, geographic mobility and change in social context – through analysis of a British cohort study linked to Census data. Using panel estimation methods, it finds that graduates of arts, humanities and social science subjects become more socially liberal than those studying other subjects, even when accounting for institutional variation, mobility, contextual effects and time-invariant confounding. It therefore makes the case that the effect of university on political values should be considered in part a learning effect: whereby disciplines affect individuals’ worldviews during the ‘impressionable years’.