Town and County, a lifestyle magazine, just printed a deep-dive story showing that many high school students and their families from the Northeast are suddenly looking to the South for higher education opportunities: “College applicants—including those from liberal Northern enclaves—are flocking to traditional Southern schools, where the vibe is more rah-rah than radical reckoning.” The article argues that this is part of a “growing trend among liberal hubs like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago” where students are looking to move away from traditional schools of the Northeast to “Southern institutions that have traditionally been written off by coastal snobs.” The piece is quick to mention that the biggest geographic subset of Tulane’s Class of 2026 is the 30 percent of students from the Northeast.
While the article noted that Southern schools may have a relaxed vibe and big sports, the piece focused heavily on cultural considerations for this new interest and demonstrates that campus culture has gone mainstream: “Conservative families consider what type of environments they want for their kids after high school. Liberal elite colleges, as they see it, promise only more wokeism.” And the piece cited a college counselor who argued that in the South, “you see a sense of community and where you’re really able to have debates and have conservations with opposing viewpoints and not be canceled.” This stands in stark opposition to the fractured collegiate worlds created by diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators that are omnipresent in the northeast.
The article is right. Earlier survey work of a relatively small number of college and university students revealed that the nation’s Southern schools remain places where Gen Z Americans—those currently in high school and college—can go to find the greatest number of politically open-minded students. New data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s recent study of almost 45,000 currently enrolled students at over 200 colleges and universities around the nation help flesh out this Southern exceptionalism.
When asked to state where current students think the political views of the average student on their respective campuses fall, Sothern schools are far more balanced than those in liberal New England. Southern students report that 38 percent of their peers are very or somewhat liberal and another 12 are very or somewhat conservative. The plurality of Southern students (48 percent), are in the middle or simply do not think much about politics. In New England, the numbers look notably different: 67 percent of students are believed to be liberal while just 30 percent are in the middle or do not care about politics. In the Mid-Atlantic, home to deep blue areas and many colleges and universities, 58 percent of students think that their peers are liberal, which is lower than in New England but still far higher than those in the South.
A similar story can be told for the perceptions of faculty ideology. Nearly 36 percent of Southern faculty are thought to be liberal with the majority (59 percent) being thought of as moderate and centrist. The picture changes in New England where 55 percent of faculty are perceived to be liberal and only 2 percent are conservative. The numbers of liberal Mid-Atlantic faculty are also higher than in the South but less extreme than in New England. There is now empirical evidence that faculty are perceived to be appreciably more left leaning in the Northeast compared to the South.
In Southern colleges, the prominence of cancel culture is notably lower than in the Mid-Atlantic or New England. Just 37 percent of students in Southern schools believe it is acceptable to block other students from attending a campus speech. In the Mid-Atlantic and in New England, these numbers are higher at 40 and 45 percent, respectively. This similar pattern occurs when students are asked about the acceptability of shouting down a speaker on campus as well. It should come as no surprise, then, that attacks on expression and people seem to happen more often in Northeast schools like MIT and Middlebury.
These new data do not suggest that there is a politically balanced utopia with open debate and ideas freely flowing in the collegiate South. Students across the nation self-censor at fairly similar rates out of fear of real professional and reputational consequences, and the South is absolutely part of that disturbing reality. Conservative voices and views are still far too underrepresented on collegiate campuses nationwide considering the ideological makeup of the rest of the polity. However, Southern schools remain far more ideologically balanced than their New England and Mid-Atlantic counterparts and their students are less likely to support cancel culture and to limit the views presented on their campuses. It is no wonder many students from liberal, coastal hubs are looking south where they will find fewer political extremes and more open minds.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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