[not_a_moth]

From my own experience, no, at the top universities the upper middle class demographic is far more concerned about lining up high paying jobs, networking, and/or working on their general social status than any sort of political activism at all. The activism comes from other groups, if even then.

Maybe at small liberal arts colleges or less elite institutions your viewpoint might be true, but I can't speak for that.

[high_derivative]

Just to clarify, I have spent the better part of the last decade at one of the institutions in my response. I have seen generations of students come and go. Your experience may differ but at least where I am, the qualitative change is this: earlier this decade, it's been really only small groups.

Now, with students born after 2000 and having grown up fully immersed in social media being on campus, what would have been relatively niche wokeness in 2010 is 'common sense' for many. Including extremely low tolerance for view point diversity.

[ZeroGravitas]

Do you have any sources to back up a reduced tolerance for viewpoint diversity, or is it just that their Overton window has shifted away from yours?

e.g. would they tolerate (even if they didn't fully agree with it) things on the extreme but opposite end of various political axis from you that you would consider beyond the pale, and vice versa?

From your perspective what seems like a narrowing of viewpoint diversity could seem like a blossoming to someone diametrically opposed to you, because each sees the subtler distinctions between factions in their own comfort zone.

[mythrwy]

Reading this I can't help but wonder where people graduating from Oberlin get jobs. Maybe as political campaign people or marketing or something?

Just picturing someone walking into a large cement plan for an interview. "Why yes, I do believe I can pull this company into the black within 3 quarters. As you see I have a degree from Oberlin college...".

Point being, graduating from there seems it could be not a positive signal but rather a huge red flag for any company engaged in productive pursuits.

Like the person has been pre-trained to be aggrieved and look for issues and possibly sue over the smallest of slights. At least that's what would cross my mind as an interviewer.

[kgodey]

Plenty of Oberlin alumni (including me) are appalled at how Oberlin is handling this situation.

[333c]

Current students as well.

[analog31]

Disclaimer: My kid got accepted at Oberlin, but instead chose a large state university.

Our perception through the process of researching many colleges, was that the SLACs (small liberal arts colleges) tended to be relatively weak in subjects that tend to lead directly to employment, and that students in those subjects expected to attend graduate school by default. My kid expects to attend grad school, so that's one data point, but I also saw it when I was in grad school. A disproportionate number of my classmates were from SLACs, including myself.

It might not be too much of a stretch to say that the SLACs are feeders for graduate schools. Once you have a graduate degree, your choice of undergraduate college is water under the bridge, though the loans might not be.

[sanderjd]

... entry level new graduates don't go into interviews making pitches about how they'll impact revenue numbers. Things like that come a decade or more later, after they have learned a whole bunch of stuff about their chosen field and forgotten most of what they thought they knew in school. That's pretty much the whole point of that decade of experience.

I'm always confused by this desire to judge entry level young people as if they are experienced mid career professionals.