The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the Golden State’s community college enrollment dropped to its lowest level in 30 years. The report notes that since pre-pandemic 2019, the state’s 115 campuses have lost about 300,000 students, a troubling 18 percent drop that could lead to significant funding cuts if enrollment does not increase. While these schools do not grab the headlines of places like Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley, they educate a vast number of students. During the 2020–2021 academic year, there were about 2.4 million undergraduate students in California, and the community college enrollment during the year prior was close to 1.8 million or about three-quarters of all students enrolled in post-secondary education.

The problems in California are not unique. While community colleges are engines for opportunity and upward mobility, the precipitous decline in enrollment represents another problem: a decline in ideological balance in higher education and the eventual permeation of graduates into larger society. While higher education in general leans to the left, students on community college campuses are far more independent.

Data from UT-Austin’s Future of Politics Survey of over 1,500 students from all sorts of schools from liberal arts colleges to big state universities provides some insight into the neutrality of community colleges compared to their noisy and problematic elite counterparts.

One common misconception that needs to be reconsidered involves the demographics of who enroll. There is more racial parity than widely assumed at community colleges: 48 percent of students are white, compared to 47 percent at the top 25 schools per US News. Top schools are not the exclusive domain of white students, nor are community colleges. At the top 25, black students make up 16 percent of the student body and 14 percent are of Asian descent; 17 percent also identify as Hispanic or Latino. This is remarkably similar to community colleges where 17 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino and Black students climb to 26 percent with Asians declining notably to just 3 percent. Despite huge amounts of aid and the proliferation of administrative offices focused on diversity, elite universities are not the champions of diversity that they like to project to the world.  

Community colleges are also more ideologically and socioeconomically diverse than their more elite counterparts. At community colleges, 30 percent of students are very or somewhat liberal and 17 percent are conservative, but the bulk of students are somewhere in the middle. 50 percent of students are either moderate, leaning to the left or right, or haven’t thought much about their ideological preferences. In contrast, 50 percent of students at the top 25 schools are liberal, 19 percent are conservative, and fewer than a third (29 percent) of students are in the middle. Even more notable, no student from the top 25 schools stated that they have not thought much about their ideological lean, compared to 17 percent of students in community colleges. Politics is more intense and ideologically lopsided in elite schools compared to community colleges today.

Another way to measure partisan intensity becomes apparent when students are asked if they think that either major party is moving in the right direction. Looking at the Democrats, 40 percent of community college students state that the Democrats are moving in the wrong direction compared to a much higher 60 percent among the elite. For the GOP, 48 percent of community college students believe that the Republican Party is moving in the wrong direction compared to 65 percent of the elite. Simply put, more elite students are notably more negative about the parties generally, which remain core institutions for progress and change in politics today.

Fewer community college enrollees mean fewer moderate voters, and this could have severe and real implications for political polarization in the years to come. When asked if voting makes a difference in how government works, 62 percent of students in the top 25 schools believe voting makes a difference compared to 46 percent of those in community colleges. If community college voters think their vote makes little difference, it shows in their voter registration too. Seventy-four percent of community college students are registered to vote, compared with 89 percent of the top 25 students. If the community college voters continue to hallow out, the electorate will continue to move to the left and centrist students will be harder to find and may not develop habit-forming electoral behaviors. As such, declining enrollment numbers are not good for democracy nor upward mobility. Fewer Americans whose lives can be transformed in community colleges are taking advantage of these sacred institutions, and those who are continuing to pursue higher education at more elite schools are increasingly left of center. Thus, policymakers and pundits should continue to support student enrollment at these bedrock community institutions.

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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