A stark divide separated how white people voted in this presidential election: whether or not they had earned a college degree.
Two-thirds of white working-class voters backed Donald J. Trump. Among white voters with college degrees, his support dropped by 18 percentage points, a gap more than twice as large as those seen in election results for his two immediate Republican predecessors.
To be clear, Mr. Trump’s share of this part of the electorate was not far off the marks set by the two previous Republican presidential candidates: Fifty-six percent of white college graduates voted for Mitt Romney in 2012; four years earlier, 51 percent did so for John McCain. For Mr. Trump, it was 49 percent, a narrow edge over the 45 percent who supported his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Where Mr. Trump overperformed was among white voters who didn’t graduate from college.
The intersection of race and education level raises questions: What explains the educational gap among white voters? How do colleges moderate or harden white students’ views on race, class, and identity? And what are the hazards for academe going forward?
