A University of California-Los Angeles survey of 137,456 first-year college students last year found that freshmen are more politically polarized now than they've been in more than 50 years.
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And while research has shown that American college students are considerably more liberal than the Republican Party on most social issues, students at many colleges — including two in Georgia — are known to identify as politically conservative.
According to the Princeton Review's 2019 "Best 384 Colleges" book, which features survey data from 138,000 students at 384 schools, Rome's Berry College and Mercer University in Macon both ranked among the 20 colleges with the most politically conservative students, based on the question, "Politically, are you far-left, Democrat, non-partisan, Republican, or far-right?"
Of the 384 colleges included in the book, Grove City College in Pennsylvania and College of the Ozarks in Missouri ranked first and second.
Mercer came in at No. 11 and Berry College, at No. 20.
According to the students, Mercer University has "a large white population," but "diversity does exist on campus." And the "best part about it is that everybody here is so accepting of people's differences and so open-minded," they told the Princeton Review.
Berry College also ranked 20th on the list in the 2018 collection, but unlike last year, the school did not make the "Best 384" "Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution" ranking, which the Princeton Review identifies with views of highly conservative political persuasions, low levels of acceptance of the gay community on campus, high levels of popularity for student government on campus and a very religious student body.
No Georgia colleges are among the 2019 top 20 colleges with the most liberal students.
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