JULY 7, 2020 By Paulina Enck

Between high school and college, young people face many significant changes: they move away from home for the first time, determine what jobs interest them, grow independent, and learn to hate the United States.

A recent poll of high schoolers and college students highlights the growing disparity in patriotism between the two groups. Colleges have long been known to be bastions of leftist thought at best and actively indoctrinating students at worst, but these numbers show a severe change in opinions about America after university attendance.

Luckily, the totaled numbers still demonstrated a sizably high degree of patriotism, but when separated between college and high school, college students showed substantially less love for this great nation.

The United States’s favorability amongst high schoolers is 88 percent, but only 69 percent among college students. The majority of high schoolers, 63 percent, are proud to be Americans. Most college students don’t share that pride: only 40 percent feel the same way.

Likewise, the majority of high schoolers consider themselves to be patriotic, while the majority of college students are not patriots, at 58 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Eighty-five percent of high schoolers are glad to live in the United States; 73 percent of college students feel the same way.

High schoolers have a far more favorable view of the American flag than college students, respectively at 91 percent and 73 percent. However, college students are more likely to approve of the United Nations flag, at 51 percent to high schoolers at 44 p ercent. Neither a majority of high schoolers nor college students are willing to sacrifice for their country, at 48 percent of high schoolers and 32 percent of college students.

In terms of the respondents, 93 percent were identified as full-time students. Forty-two percent were in high school, 13 percent in college for an associate’s degree, 31 percent in college for a bachelor’s degree, and 7 percent were graduate students. Fifty-three percent of respondents were female, and 47 percent male. Conservatives comprised of 21 percent of the respondents, liberals 33 percent, and moderates 33 percent.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/07/poll-young-americans-become-substantially-less-patriotic-after-going-to-college/?fbclid=IwAR0vp0v4keKaf9GG0GWOE31enWAVU97qE_2_0geJc09-4A2-0k7Hh_elH7g#.XwXplbruKnY.facebook