Students thinking about college used to concentrate mainly on such factors as cost, convenience, and quality of instruction in the fields they’re interested in. Today, there’s a huge new factor: politics.

In today’s Martin Center article, Matthew Rohl looks at the way students now evaluate colleges.

He writes:

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Pam Royall, EAB’s head of research, has seen a growing number of students cite politics as a factor in choosing their college. “We have evolved our method to allow for these kinds of responses, which weren’t as prevalent five years ago,” she recently told Inside Higher Ed. Now, in 2025, EAB has found that “almost a third of students removed a college from their consideration . . . for political reasons.” Although expenses and distance still outrank politics as key factors, political considerations should not be dismissed by colleges as a fringe phenomenon.

This is regrettable, but shows how ideology is coming to dominate society. Some students are intent on attending a college because it’s at the forefront of activism; and some students avoid colleges for the same reason.

Read the whole thing.