Liberal Arts, Conservative Wallets: How College Majors Steer Students’ Politics

For the roughly 15 million college undergraduates in the United States, the benefits of pursuing higher education include better employment prospects, greater social mobility, and even longer-lasting marriages. Research released last year, however, finds that at least one important life outcome — political ideology — is heavily dependent not merely on the decision to attend college, but also on the particular subjects students choose to study. The paper, authored by Israeli academics Yoav Goldstein and Matan Kolerman, used survey responses from nearly 500 American colleges and universities to isolate the political impact of students’ choice of college majors. Those who...