College Spillover Effects; Reassessing Whites' Racial Beliefs and Policy Attitudes

Abstract

College educated people hold distinct racial beliefs and policy attitudes from people who did not attend college. The current study examines "College Spillover Effects." Specifically, does the effect of a college education on racial beliefs and policy attitudes also impact those dispositions in people who did not go to college but hold close social ties with a college graduate? While existing research on racial attitudes does not address college spillover effects, college educated Whites have been associated with decreased odds of holding racist beliefs, and with no such association to support for policies that would address racial inequality. Using cumulative data from the General Social Survey, I compare two groups of White high school graduates; (1) those married to White high school graduates, and (2) those married to White College graduates. Logistic and Ordered Logistic regression models reveal that there are college spillover effects in White couples with differing levels of education, net of relevant control variables. In general, White high school graduates married to college graduates exhibit decreased odds of holding racist beliefs and decreased odds of strongly opposing race-targeting policies than those married to other high school graduates. College spillover effects were not found in support for Affirmative action, though females exhibit decreased odds of strongly opposing these programs. Additionally, as age and income increases, so do the odds for strongly opposing preferential hiring of blacks. The idea of When and Why the effects that college has on racial beliefs and policy attitudes would spillover in social groups is discussed, and suggestions for future research are noted.