The Great Sort in Action: Students Choosing Colleges Based on States’ (Gun) Politics

For generations, students chose colleges based on factors like their academic reputation, tuition costs or social scene. But in today’s divided nation, politics has emerged as a rising influence on where young people pursue higher learning.

In recent years, researchers have found that growing numbers of students rule out applying to colleges in states they consider too liberal or too conservative. Some are even willing to pay thousands of dollars more to attend schools where they feel politically in sync. For others, the issue isn’t politics alone. They’re avoiding schools in states where they wouldn’t feel safe due to a lack of gun control, abortion access or trans rights.

When Esha Ambre, a rising sophomore at the University of California, Irvine, applied to college, she limited her choices to blue states.

“I tend to stay away from schools that were in, like, Florida,” said Ambre, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. “I didn’t apply to any schools in Texas, even though there are some liberal spots.”

Ambre is a Youth Council fellow at Project Unloaded, a nonprofit focused on gun violence prevention through youth outreach. In middle school, gun violence directly impacted her family when a shooting occurred while her sister was using public transportation. Although her sister made it out physically unscathed, the incident left lasting emotional wounds. So, Ambre balked at the idea of attending college in a state like Texas where residents can carry firearms in public without a license.

“I applied out of state for sure, but I do think a majority of the schools that I applied to that were out of state were, like, Washington, then Washington D.C., like major areas that were, I think, considered more safe,” Ambre explained.

After entering college, her decision proved prescient when both her best friend and boyfriend ended up in close proximity to shootings while studying at colleges out of state. Her boyfriend attends the University of Texas at Austin and narrowly missed the violence when a bar shooting occurred, she said. Her best friend attends Brown University in Rhode Island, where a mass shooting took place on the campus in December, though the state has strict gun laws.

“Growing up, I never thought that I would have to interact with gun violence,” Ambre said. “And then my sister went through an experience. My best friend did. My boyfriend did.”

Gun violence has also affected Anabelle Sanchez, who serves on Project Unloaded’s Youth Council with Ambre. When Sanchez was in high school, her family was at a Chicago-area mall when someone flashed a gun, forcing the shopping center to go on lockdown. That incident prompted her to get involved in the gun control movement.

— Nadra Nittle in For college students, a school’s state politics can matter as much as its academics