Fact check: Do high-income college-educated voters tend to support liberal or conservative policies?

1. What proponents claim — The diploma divide driving partisan alignment

Analysts argue that education has become a primary predictor of voting behavior, with college graduates skewing Democratic and non‑graduates skewing Republican, a phenomenon labeled the “diploma divide.” Longtime Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik and recent election summaries describe this shift as pronounced in the 2024 cycle, where college-educated voters favored the Democratic ticket and non‑college voters favored the Republican ticket ^{[4] [1]}. The academic account in Polarized by Degrees frames this as a long-term realignment driven by cultural and ideological sorting among the educated, reinforcing claims that education now rivals or exceeds traditional predictors like region or class ^[5].

2. What the data show — Exit polls and 2024 patterns

Exit-poll data from the 2024 presidential election provide concrete numbers: college graduates favored Vice President Kamala Harris by double digits, while those without a college degree favored Donald Trump, particularly among white voters and men. Reports cite a 55%–42% split for college grads versus a 56%–42% split for non‑college voters opposite that direction, illustrating a sharp education-based partisan gap ^[1]. These figures substantiate the basic claim that higher education correlates with Democratic vote choice in the aggregate, though polls capture voting outcomes rather than the full nuance of issue-by-issue preferences.

3. Where the simple story breaks down — Income, race and gender matter

The broad label “high-income college-educated” obscures important subgroup variation. Studies note that affluent, college-educated white women shifted left in recent cycles and were a key Democratic constituency in 2024, reflecting gendered and racial intersections with education and income ^[3]. At the same time, working‑class and college‑educated voters can overlap on certain economic issues, showing that income and education do not always move together in predicting party preference. The combined effect produces a patchwork where many high-income graduates vote Democratic but not universally so across demographics or geography ^{[3] [6]}.

4. Policy preferences reveal another layer — Economic populism vs cultural liberalism

Issue-level analyses show convergence on some economic policies between college-educated and working-class voters: majorities across these groups support higher minimum wages, stronger unions, progressive taxation, and public investment, suggesting high-income college graduates often endorse redistributive economic policies in public opinion surveys ^[6]. However, disagreement persists on immigration and certain cultural questions where college-educated voters trend more liberal. This means that while educated high-income voters tilt Democratic on culture and representation, they may align with populist economic reform positions that cut across class lines ^[6].

5. Scholarly framing and potential agendas — Polarization and “culture war” narratives

Academic work frames the diploma divide as partly a cultural realignment, where educated liberals dominate cultural institutions and thereby influence party coalitions, a claim advanced in Polarized by Degrees. This framing highlights ideological sorting rather than purely economic explanation, and it carries potential agendas: it can be used to argue that elites drive policy priorities or conversely to portray non‑college voters as culturally conservative reactionaries. Both frames draw on the same empirical education–party correlation but emphasize different causal stories and political implications ^[5].

6. What’s missing from the debate — Regional, wealth distribution, and turnout dynamics

Existing analyses often omit regional variation, intra‑college heterogeneity, and turnout effects among high‑income graduates. The broad statistics on college degrees and voting do not fully account for urban versus suburban or rural divides, nor for variation by field of study or partisan social networks. Additionally, the claim that college graduates “hold about three-quarters of the wealth” points to wealth concentration but does not directly translate to uniform policy preferences among wealthy graduates, leaving open questions about how wealth and local politics shape choices ^{[4] [7]}.

7. Bottom line and qualified answer to the original question

The evidence supports the concise answer: high‑income, college‑educated voters generally lean toward liberal policies and Democratic candidates, especially on cultural and identity-driven issues, while showing bipartisan support for certain progressive economic measures. That conclusion is robust across exit polls and scholarly accounts, but it must be qualified by race, gender, region, policy area, and turnout — all of which produce sizable exceptions and nuanced coalitions rather than absolute uniformity ^{[1] [6] [5]}.