The research of William Marble is a fascinating explanation of why college graduates have migrated to the Democratic Party over the past two decades.  According to Marble’s study of voter opinion polls, the white college-educated class has moved left toward toward progressive economics and cultural diversity. He suggests that the economic, political and cultural institutions have been controlled by the college elites, creating a reaction against these institutions from working class, non-college-educated voters [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/01/understanding-electorate-diploma-divide/]. His analysis would explain why Republicans have begun to campaign against the academic and bureaucratic “elites” in federal elections.

As a professor emeritus of a publicly funded diverse university, I want to suggest a more direct explanation of the “diploma divide” between college graduates and non-college graduates.

1. the increasing diversity of publicly funded post-secondary schools
2. the bias toward cultural tolerance in academic communities

Affirmative action has increased the diversity of  publicly and privately funded universities. Increasingly diverse communities have the predictable effect of students understanding diverse racial and gender characteristics that formerly divided them. At my university students confessed to me they had never met a Black or Gay student until they arrived on campus.  In spite of the university being majority white and heterosexual, the presence of students of color and differing sexuality gave students a chance to know students they formerly saw as categories, rather than friends and acquaintances.  My more transparent students admitted as much.

In addition my university supported tolerance in their courses and public discourse to support the diversity of their student bodies. Both natural sciences and social sciences promoted tolerance based on the current research on racial and gender diversity.  As a teacher of “Writing for Teachers” I noticed the development of students’ tolerance of diversity in their essays.  Many of them would refer to changed attitudes based on the research they were exposed to in other classes. As a teacher educator I was pleased that my students were entering the teaching profession with a bias toward tolerance.

The combination of meeting students of differing race and gender identity and the academic confirmation of diversity led white students who came from the suburbs to develop more tolerance than students who remained in their own enclaves at home.  It is not that academically trained students were inherently more sophisticated, but by attending a school with a diverse population and becoming informed about the equality of the races and gender preferences, white students became more tolerant than their peers who lacked these experiences.

It is no wonder the Republican Party campaigns agains the “academic elites” who differ from the non-college population in tolerance of diversity. Yet perhaps there is a “holier than thou” attitude in the college-educated, which further alienates the two classes of voters, and this reinforces the perception that college graduates are “elitists.”

Lately the monetary value of a college education has been questioned. Graduates find they do not have skills that employers are looking for, and therefore wonder if the considerable investment in a college education is worth the price. Perhaps one hidden value of a college education is an appreciation of students that differ in racial identity and gender preference. These lessons are not easily learned in the homogeneous communities student come from.

What can be done about the culture wars that might result from the “diploma divide”? There are other educational environments, such as the military, employment-related programs, and community service. Members of these communities meet diverse recruits and may grow in understanding of differences. The military has grown with the times and advocated the kind of tolerance that universities reinforce.

For the other youth who remain in their familiar communities, the experience of diversity may be missing in their education. The persistence of the racial and culture wars may be reinforced by young people staying at home in their own enclaves. The “diploma wars” will persist until positive experiences of meeting racially and gender diverse contemporaries is part of their culture. The point is not to recruit more voters to the ranks of the Democrats, but to neutralize the culture wars, so that diversity is no longer a significant issue in political campaigns.