The popularity of Libertarianism on college campuses is well known and can be seen in organizations like Students For Liberty and Young Americans for Freedom.

In a new post at Minding the Campus, Duke Cheston examines the issue.

The Rise of the Libertarians

Libertarianism is spreading on our college campuses. An unusually large number of politically-minded, frustrated students, who refer to themselves as the “liberty movement,” believe themselves to be part of a rising tide that will restore the country to greatness.

Much of the recent growth in libertarian activism emerged after Ron Paul’s 2008 failed presidential bid, when Jeff Frazee, Paul’s national youth coordinator, founded Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). Aided in part by the right-of-center activist training group the Leadership Institute and its team of field representatives, YAL now boasts chapters on over 380 campuses and a membership of some 125,000 students. Another libertarian group, Students for Liberty, has since seen exponential growth since its founding in 2008. At the end of 2008, there were 42 campus groups in the SFL network. By 2013, SFL claimed an affiliation with 930 groups worldwide: 767 in the U.S., over 100 in Europe, and a few dozen in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

David Deerson, who was the president of UNC-Chapel Hill’s YAL chapter until he graduated in May, says that his personal story is a “microcosm” of the growth of the liberty movement on campus. When he arrived at UNC as a freshman, he sought out the student libertarian group. There were only about four people regularly attending the weekly meetings, and they didn’t do much in terms of activism. But by the time Deerson graduated, roughly 25 people attended weekly meetings, and the group–now a chapter of YAL–was winning awards for its activism.

Deerson credited the growth of the club to the training he received from Students for Liberty and to changing attitudes among students. A handful of studies lend credence to this view. A 2011study by UCLA scientists found incoming students to have more liberal views, but only on social issues, meaning that there are more students who identify as fiscally conservative and socially liberal–in effect, libertarian. A 2012survey by the Panetta Institute found that 30 percent of college students have libertarian beliefs. Indeed, the present time seems to be a “libertarian moment” for the entire country, as statistician Nate Silver has suggested.