The Diploma Divide
An Emerging Reality of U.S.Politics
What characterizes the U.S. as the country approaches its 250th year is a deep Diploma Divide. The source of the divide, no one should be surprised to know, is President Donald Trump. President Trump knows that his most ardent critics can be found in American colleges and universities, and he is attacking those institutions mercilessly. Starting with Harvard, the oldest and most renowned university in the country.
I attended a Harvard commencement ceremony in the late 1960s when universities all over the country, including Harvard, were facing an unprecedented wave of protests. Harvard’s president delivered the usual announcement to the graduating class: ``This university hereby awards you your first degree in the arts and sciences and welcomes you to the community of educated men and women.’’ The graduates responded with displeasure. That was not the community they aspired to join -- not at a time of bitter resentment with the country’s ruling class and anger at both political parties.
The 1960s saw the beginning of the country’s bitter Diploma Divide, which at the beginning was less partisan than anti-Establishment. But always fueled by left-wing sentiment.
The 1960s and 1970s marked the rise of the Baby Boomer generation and its distinctive anti-Establishment style of politics. What we are seeing today is the emergence of a new Post-millennial generation of Americans, born between 1997 and 2012, with its own distinctive style of politics.
The Pew Research Center published a study of the emerging Post-millennial generation in 2018. The basic finding: ``Post-millennials are the most diverse, best educated generation yet.’’
Among Post-millennials, 43 percent have at least one parent with a college degree. The figure was 32 percent with a college-educated parent for the Baby Boomer generation before them. In 2018, a bare majority (52 percent) of Post-millennials were non-Hispanic whites. A solid majority of 18-to-20-year-olds were enrolled in college (59 percent), including most young whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans.
What characterizes Post-millennials more than anything else is diversity. What characterizes MAGA Republicans more than anything else is lack of diversity. President Trump has made himself a critic of diversity. He did it most clearly at a theatrical moment in his State of the Union speech when he offered this challenge to Members of Congress: ``If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.’’
No Democrats stood. That gave Trump the opportunity to make this defiant declaration: ``You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. . . . I’m also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens.’’
Trump was denouncing illegal immigrants as dangerous aliens who are a threat to law abiding citizens -- an arguable proposition. And denouncing Democrats for ``blocking the removal’’ of the illegal immigrant menace. Trump’s assertion was intended to throw Democrats on the defensive. It also alienated millions of young Americans who are strongly sympathetic to immigrants and supportive of diversity.
As Republicans rally behind Trump, they are rapidly losing support from well educated Americans. It’s the basis of a realignment of the country’s politics. Beginning in the 1930s, wealthier and better educated voters trended Republican (everywhere outside the South). Beginning in the 1960s with the rapid increase in the number of college-educated Americans, the civil rights movement and opposition to the war in Vietnam generated an outpouring of anti-Establishment sentiment that drew well educated young millennials into the Democratic Party – a shift that accelerated as a result of the Watergate scandal.
Donald Trump changed everything. Trump drew strong support from older and rural white voters who were infuriated by the growing diversity and political correctness that dominated American politics under Barack Obama, the first black president and the nation’s most liberal president ever. White southerners and older, non-college whites formed the core of Trump’s MAGA movement and took control of the Republican Party.
What we are seeing now is a growing divergence between college-educated white voters and non-college whites, with well-educated younger voters (especially women) now staunchly Democratic. (After nominating and electing the nation’s first black President, Democrats nominated the first female candidates for President in 2016 and 2024. Trump narrowly defeated both women.)
The diploma divide has become a defining feature of American politics. The ten best educated states (as measured by the percentage of voters with college degrees) all voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. In the last three elections, Virginia, the best educated southern state, has never voted for Donald Trump. Nine of the ten least educated states voted for Trump in 2024 (the exception was heavily Hispanic New Mexico).
The least educated state, West Virginia, is over 90 percent white and solidly blue collar. During the era of Sen. Robert Byrd, the country’s longest serving Senate majority leader, West Virginia was a solidly New Deal Democratic state (coal miners). West Virginia is now Donald Trump’s second best state (after tiny, remote Wyoming). You won’t find many college educated yuppies or affluent white female urban liberals (so-called AWFULs) in West Virginia.