On the front lines of the nation’s divides are campuses like MiraCosta College’s.
The community college, which stretches 25 miles along the Southern California coast, includes precincts that voted for Donald Trump and those that voted for Hillary Clinton. It includes communities where the median property value is $2 million and those where the median annual income is less than $60,000. The majority of its students are nonwhite. One-third are Hispanic. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is its neighbor, and a significant proportion of students (8 percent) are active-duty members of the military, military dependents, or veterans.
Students represent “the extremes of ideological perspectives,” says Kristen Huyck, MiraCosta’s communications director who also teaches political science there….