The Anxious Generation Is Changing College Choice | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of The James G. Martin Center. The author of this post is Matthew Rohl.

    Political motivation, especially in recent years, has been no stranger to college choice. Nevertheless, EAB, a consulting firm specializing in education solutions, had never asked students if their political views played a role in their college selection. This year, for the first time ever, they did.

    Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Pam Royall, EAB's head of research, has seen a growing number of students cite politics as a factor in choosing their college. "We have evolved our method to allow for these kinds of responses, which weren't as prevalent five years ago," she recently told Inside Higher Ed. Now, in 2025, EAB has found that "almost a third of students removed a college from their consideration ... for political reasons." Although expenses and distance still outrank politics as key factors, political considerations should not be dismissed by colleges as a fringe phenomenon.

    Colleges are seeking to cater to what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt labels the "Anxious Generation."

    As EAB explains, colleges are seeking to cater to what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt labels the "Anxious Generation." The average teen, Haidt explains, has undergone a "great rewiring"-one that has ensured that "a substantial portion of their attention is monitoring or worrying (being anxious) about events in the social metaverse." With Haidt further estimating that teens receive a push notification once every five minutes, EAB sees the average teen as one immersed in a world of online distractions. The firm has supported this with its own findings, reporting that 85 percent of prospective college students check social media at least once a day. Hence the "Anxious Generation" of college-goers.

    Hot-button issues are further weaving political considerations into the fabric of college choice.

    As online engagement has become an integral part of typical teen life, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether political engagement has followed suit. Steve Bannon, reflecting on "America's Great Divide," sketched the present political environment: Politics have "permeated popular culture ... and now it's part of your life; it's an aspirational lifestyle brand that you're either a progressive democrat, a reactionary republican, a Trump guy wearing a red hat, or someone that believes in AOC and thinks Trump's the devil." Are colleges, a developmental step for many members of the "Anxious Generation," immune from this? Almost certainly not.


    Teens' social metaverses are imbued with politics, which fuels students' desire to express their opinions and enact change on and off campus. Compared to last year, more prospective students in 2025 believed that a safe campus environment included the "freedom to express my thoughts and values without harassment" and "[a] school's stated commitment to free speech." EAB attributes the former value's response growth to "campus protests related to Palestine in 2023 and 2024." Perhaps the latter, too, can be attributed to the Palestine protests, as well as other campus-specific free-speech conflicts (e.g., "diversity, equity, and inclusion"). In any case, as hot-button political issues have not left the college stage, it may be safe to say that they are here to stay, further weaving political considerations into the fabric of college choice.

    Rather than chasing progressive or conservative students specifically, colleges should respond to all of this by explicitly valuing intellectual diversity in faculty hiring, institutional neutrality on the part of administrators speaking for the entire university, and a healthy freedom of speech and conscience for all. If extreme left-leaning students don't want to study in such an environment, they won't be missed.

    Matthew Rohl is a student at Thales College and a 2025 Martin Center intern.