A poll from the Art & Science Group released this month showed 28 percent of students ruled out a school due to the politics of the state the college is in. Among those who excluded certain schools, 75 percent of liberals avoided ones they saw as too far to the right on abortion rights or LGBTQ issues, while 66 percent of conservatives crossed off colleges in states they labeled as too Democratic, too liberal on LGBTQ issues or too lenient on crime.
Texas was the most frequently excluded state, with 31 percent of those who eliminated schools based on state saying it was a dealbreaker for them. The other states that were ruled out by 15 percent or more were Alabama, California, Florida and New York.
I don’t think there’s any reliable way to get the stats on this, but I’d be curious to know the partisan split on the students making that call vs. the parents. I bet the “that’s too liberal” crowd skews towards parents who “ain’t gonna pay for that shit” moreso than the students themselves rejecting it.