Why are most of the top universities liberal?

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I would say most universities in America are more liberal than the national average, or even the average of the surrounding area. There are exceptions like BYU or Liberty University but I'd say its a pretty international phenomenon. I don't think theres a single reason, but its probably because younger people tend to be more liberal than older people.

globalization

The top colleges are liberal (among other things) partly because most of the tenured professors live in a socialist-style academic bubble, often have little if any real world experience in a regular job, and sometimes sleep with (and thus often adopt the views of) the co-eds in their classes. Oh, plus there are more Marxists on U.S. university faculties than there were ever in Russia.

As an academic, you are allowed to live in a world of theoreticals and idealism. Socialism sounds great on paper, but it never works in the real world.

I would seriously love to give every homeless person in the country $1 billion...sounds great, doesn't it?

I blame Immanuel Kant.

define "top" and "liberal" more carefully

The vast majority of colleges and universities are liberal. It's just the mindset of those who opt for academia--probably is a personality trait set by chemicals or genetics. There's probably some common personality trait among most academics that is a personality trait common to liberals/leftists.

You guy are giving the professors too much credit. The fact is that the overall trend of demographics has almost always been one of liberalization.

Youth are almost always more liberal than older generations. When those youth grow up, they are replaced on the liberal side of the spectrum by their children. Even though they haven't necessarily changed their views, they are now the "conservatives" by virtue of being relatively less liberal than the new "liberals." Of course, there are always exceptions (e.g. counter-movements),

As someone has mentioned, people give professors too much credit.

Kids that go into top universities are usually already liberal. Young people tend to be more liberal just from growing up in a different time, particularly socially. Being surrounded by liberal people and people with different backgrounds tends to change their views. A friend of mine admitted she used to be homophobic after growing up in a conservative family, but once she met and became friends with different people, she changed her views.

Also, to encourage free enquiry, you need to have a free and liberal environment, especially in regards to science. I do agree that the youth is always a tad more liberal than their parents, except the extreme cases, of course. You can't hate anyone you grew up with. Well, you can at the time, but once you've become an adult, and the object of hatred has been humanized, it is really the work of a psychopath to make the effort of hating them. =p

2 reasons IMO:

1) The youth are more liberal (as previously stated)

2) Academia always seeks to describe an over-arching theory of X subject. If (you believe) you can describe an over-arching theory, then it is tempting to believe you can control the outcome of the system by manipulating the inputs. Hello socialism / centralized control. And who is most qualified to manipulate the inputs of the system? Why the academic of course.

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

There is very little willingness to say "I don't know" or "it can't be controlled" or "the individual can do it better." There is even less to admit that theories are generally based on idealistic assumptions which do not hold in the real world.

First - for the purpose of my post a liberal is defined as someone that believe in centralized control of the economy

Now, academics for the most part are believers in 'rationalism empiricism' - which is the belief that the world can be understood through logic, but that those beliefs must also be consistent with observations in the real world. Where academics go wrong is in believing that certain types of observations can be interpreted within a logical framework (most real world phenomina cannot be, it is too complex). In other words, academics believe in the power of the human mind, and the ability to understand the world (which is incorrect).

The extension of this belief system to politics results in a system where the centralized control of as many facets of human life as possible is seen as ideal. This is because of the belief that problems in economies ( or societies, more broadly) can be efficiently addressed 'rationally.' this however is not the case. Anyone interested in this topic should read an influential paper titles the unanticipated consequences of propulsive social action (id link it, but cant post links).

If my answer to the question "why are they liberals" it would be this one: Hubris

some typos in my post, but i think youll understand regardless -

I think it is quite funny how everyone distinguishes liberals and conservatives. While they may believe in a sort of fantastical society of complete ethical altruism. While many of their left wing ideas related to markets are actually quite centralized; many of their social beliefs are not. Even highly acclaimed (with a capital L) Liberal Hayek didn't believe in a laissez faire market.

not laissez fair, but his writing was about how centralized control of the economy leads to economic slavery - look into the book "the road to serfdom" by him

An interesting paradox is that a good amount of students at these top schools i.e. ivy league come from upper middle to upper class families who tend to be fiscally conservative yet a lot of students at these colleges consider themselves liberal. The influence of professors might account for this shift once students spend time in school.

(1) Schools are major recipients of government research dollars. The NSF, Endowment for the Arts/Humanities, various government agencies...you better be pro-government when your research funding (and by extension your job) depends on it.

(2) Most educated people are socially liberal, or at least very tolerant. And people tend to vote in line with their social values because, even in academia, few understand economics. And even among those that do, half are of the Krugman school of thought.

(3) A sense of noblesse oblige. Academics generally consider themselves to be among the elite, culturally/intellectually if not financially. From there, it's a small leap to pitying those poor, uneducated masses...and trying to "help" them by telling them what to do. For their own good. Of course.

Because most are in liberal areas of the U.S. (i.e. New England).