New research shows that college students are affected by peers, not professors, on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religion, according to The Associated Press. UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute took a sample of 15,000 students who entered 136 colleges in 2004 and surveyed them during their freshman and junior years of college. The research shows that students are more affected by the powerful influence of fellow students than the opinions of left-leaning faculty. At most colleges, peer progressive groups leaning to the left are more common than conservative ones. After college, students move to the right. According to findings, students are nearly as likely to call themselves “conservative” as “liberal” after three years of college.
