Incoming college students show unified support for marriage equality
First-year college students’ political and social views continue to shift in a progressive direction. An unprecedented 71.3 percent of incoming college students indicated that same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status, compared with 64.9 percent in 2009, according to the 2011 CIRP Freshman Survey, which is based on the responses of more than 200,000 first-time full-time students entering four-year colleges across the country.
“Among students entering college, we’re seeing a more unified support for same-sex marriage that reaches across political party lines,” said John H. Pryor, lead author of the report and director of CIRP.
“Given the influence of young voters in the last presidential election, candidates may want to pay careful attention to the student perspective on these and other civil rights issues.”
