More on the education divide in the U.S.

I’ve written in an earlier bog post about the unprecedented ‘education divide’ where the level of formal education is now the most highly correlated indicator of a person’s political beliefs. Yesterday The Wall Street Journal ran a story about that same phenomenon with a series of findings by the Bowling Green State University National Center for Family and Marriage Research. The results of their surveys are stunning! The new research confirms earlier findings by Franklin and Marshall College cited in my blog post. The LA Times reports the same results as shown in the graphics updated yesterday. (Red is Trump support, blue is Clinton support).  In this nation with a recent history of 50/50 political splits, these dramatic differences are shocking.

The basic observation here is that people with a college education are more likely to reject Trump as unfit for leadership. People without a college education are more willing to see him as a potential political leader.

It seems clear that there is something that happens to our brains in step with educational advancement, something other than external economic advancement, that shapes our core beliefs and values. It just seems to happen that the litmus test results are exposed in this political election cycle.

As an individual with a high level of formal education frequently working with smart and affluent business owners without formal education, I find this divide to be particularly disturbing.