Does being educated make you conservative or liberal?

Answer 1

Education really doesn't have as much of an effect as people think it does. For people with at least a college degree, which I consider educated, they were evenly split between Bush and Kerry in 2004 (49%-49%). People with JUST a bacholor's degree were more likely to vote for Bush (52% - 46%) while those with postgrad study (doctor/lawyer/master/PhD) were more likely to vote for Kerry (44% - 55%). So the most highly educated lean towards being democrats. In my own experience I've found that really all education does is make people more likely to truly analyze candidates, voting records, etc in order to make an informed decision. I don't think it steers people towards one ideology or another. I work with nothing but MS's and PhD's, and conservatives PREDOMINATE at my lab. But I saw a very different trend in grad school and when I worked on the east coast. There's no hard and fast conclusion that can be made. Sorry folks.

Answer 2

I am not sure if being more educated, as in earning a bachelor's degree, master's degree, or PhD. necessarily makes you liberal or conservative. I don't feel there is any evidence to suggest that you can take a conservative or a liberal, make them go through the university system and get a PhD and change their political ideology.

It is true that people with Master's degrees or PhDs are more likely to be liberal. It cannot be proven that liberals are more intelligent. There is the real possibility that being liberal makes you more likely to pursue higher education degrees.

Answer 3

I don't think it has much to do with it. How far you went in school doesn't actually equate with intelligence all the time. I have neighbors that graduated from college, one is a truck driver and the other is unemployable. Both are as dumb as a box of rocks and both are staunch republicans. I've lived a satisfied, fairly successful life and never got past the 11th grade in school. I'm an independent although I lean towards the liberal ideology.

Answer 4

Neither.

I've met educated and uneducated on both sides of the aisle.

Being educated does not necessarily come from just "school". Self improvement, studying and reading informative pieces and paying attention to life in general is part of being educated.

Being ignorant isn't part of any political party or philosophy.

Answer 5

Liberals tend to be better educated than conservatives but being educated doesn’t in and of itself make you either liberal or conservative.

There are some extremely well-educated conservatives who have very narrow minds and who have never learned to think outside of their little boxed-in biases. They have experienced education without absorbing the reasoning ability and broadness of outlook that education is meant to confer.

Answer 6

Education doesn't affect a persons greed or insecurities. So you can educate a conservative all you want but they will still ignore corruption and suffering as long as they don't have to see it. Although, education only helps you lean toward the left and it encourages rational thought as opposed to the black and white views the Cons subscribe to.

Answer 7

I've recently read that conservatives tend to see things simplistically, whereas liberals have more shadings, subtlties, and complexity to their views.

It's more a personality thing.

Though, people who accept complexity are more likely to pursue education, and do better at it than those who have to keep everything simple and one-dimensional.

On the other hand, it does seem to often happen that young people, raised by conservative parents, when they go to college and learn more about history (not the whitewashed stuff you get in pre-college) and such, that they tend to become more liberal in their views.

Not just history, but other fields, as well, tend to make people more nuanced in how they think about the world.

Answer 8

There used to be a tv commercial for make up: "Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline".

Being Conservative comes from having good common sense and solid beliefs, not some gray, hazy, absurdly contradictory and hypocritical view of the world.

So, education can sway someone with common sense and innate intelligence to vote Republican, but all the education in the world can't save a Liberal from his rather unique, somewhat nutty, viewpoints.

If Conservatism were beauty, no amount of Maybelline makeup is going to turn a Liberal into a Conservative. You have to be born with it.

Answer 9

Neither, but it does impact where you work. If you are already liberal, you'll stay in liberal professions - educator, journalism.

If you're conservative, you'll probably leverage that education to make a nice living.

Answer 10

I believe further education tends to influence people to be conservative. A broader education brings with it a broader image of right and wrong. With this understanding, the greater scope of the world - past and present, leads to a more or less conservative attitude. Good question.