Introduction & Methodology
This fall, the data team at the Harvard Political Review set out to resurrect a former semesterly initiative, the Campus Poll. The Fall 2025 poll addressed a wide range of issues from campus life and culture to artificial intelligence, foreign policy, and U.S. politics. New this year, we are also releasing a series of articles that dig into key poll findings and contextualize them within the broader campus and political spheres.
The Harvard Political Review’s Fall 2025 Campus Poll was conducted online via Qualtrics and was in the field from Dec. 2 to Dec. 13, 2025. This iteration of the poll was conducted among a volunteer sample and received 163 initial responses. Respondents who were ineligible to complete the poll or did not complete it in full were removed from our sample, resulting in a final sample size of 114 current undergraduate students. We did not weight responses by Harvard College demographic characteristics, but responses were generally well distributed across class year and included responses from every field cluster, although social science students are overrepresented.
We briefly outline a selection of key findings below. A full report of findings can be accessed here.
Key Findings
- Among the campus institutions and entities in the poll, student-run institutions have both the highest and lowest approval ratings. The Crimson is the campus institution with the highest approval rating (71%), while the Institute of Politics and Harvard Undergraduate Association come in last (38% and 39%, respectively).
- At the end of a turbulent year, Harvard’s response to demands from the Trump Administration has made respondents more proud to be a Harvard student (61%).
- Less than half of students (47%) believe that faculty at Harvard represent diverse viewpoints. However, recent intellectual vitality initiatives may have made their mark, as 64% agree that open dialogue is encouraged by the Harvard University Administration.
- As colleges and universities grapple with how to handle artificial intelligence in the educational sphere, 56% of college respondents report using the technology “often” or “very often.”
- As the College takes on grade inflation, 87% of students report “some” or “a great deal” of pressure to earn good grades. The most common concern among students regarding grade deflation is getting into graduate school (43%).
- Respondents were generally pessimistic about the trajectory of the country, with large majorities believing that the economy, foreign policy, immigration policy, and the country at large are headed in the wrong direction.
- Students mistrust the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court, with 72% of students reporting they trust the Court “not at all” or “not too much.”
- Respondents believe that climate and environmental issues are the greatest global challenge facing our generation (27%), followed by artificial intelligence (17%) and social or cultural norms (14%).
- A larger proportion of respondents oppose more stringent federal regulations on artificial intelligence (49%) than support them (42%), an interesting juxtaposition given that over half of students (54%) worry that artificial intelligence will significantly or slightly threaten their job security.
- Eighty-three percent of respondents agreed that gerrymandering is unfair, while 7% did not. However, this consensus weakens when it comes to students’ own party’s electoral prospects, with 25% claiming to support gerrymandering when it benefits their preferred party.
Fall 2025 Campus Poll Data Team: Alex Heuss, Johnny Perkins, Christine Choi, Avi Agarwal, Rhianne Mae Tabayoyong, James McAffrey
Additional Contributions and Support From: Zach Berg; Ella Ricketts & Juan Wulff; Sophia Lichterfeld; Dylan Morris & Kaylee Yang; Darshanik Aryal, Zoe Macaluso & Aidan Zagel; Caleb Masshardt, Sarita Popat, Melanie Goldberg, Nate Iyer, & Ben Brown
