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A national poll, conducted by the nonpartisan Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy and released Wednesday, showed support for higher education and international students, uncertainty about the economy and polarization over President Donald Trump’s treatment of elite universities. It also showed general support for deporting immigrants without legal status but a sharp divide over whether those deportations should require due process.
Overall, respondents supported deporting individuals who entered the U.S. illegally, but generally disagreed with deportation that bypassed legal hearings.
While 51% of respondents strongly or somewhat supported deporting individuals who entered the country illegally, when asked about deportation “without a formal hearing before a judge in an immigration court,” support dropped to 39% — with 46% of respondents somewhat or strongly opposed.
Republican support was not swayed by a lack of formal hearings: 75% of Republicans supported deportations without due process, whereas only 33% of independents and 11% of Democrats supported it.
The poll administrators acknowledged that the Trump administration increased deportations of undocumented immigrants as the survey was being conducted, leading to protests in Los Angeles and other cities, possibly affecting survey results.
Higher education was another area that saw significant differences in opinion. While 76% of respondents believed that a college education is vital to success, views of the institutions themselves were much less favorable.
Forty-six percent of those surveyed expressed confidence in public colleges and universities, but only 30% shared the same level of confidence in private schools. Among traditional Republicans, the difference in opinion over public or private colleges was even more stark: 40% of traditional Republicans have confidence in public universities, but just 16% had confidence in private universities.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Trump voters identify with MAGA slogan)
Still, looking at the president’s actions, the poll found that Americans were mostly opposed to Trump’s treatment of colleges and universities, specifically his moves against elite institutions like Harvard: 61% disapproved. Most Republicans (77%) supported Trump’s recent actions, but that support differed among various factions within the party: 86% of MAGA-identifying Republicans supported Trump’s treatment of higher education, but only 56% of traditional Republicans did. For their part, independents (28%s) and Democrats (8%) were far less supportive. MAGA is an acronym for the slogan Trump popularized when first running for office: Make America Great Again.
Whereas a 61% majority opposed the U.S. president deciding whether colleges and universities can enroll foreign students, approximately 60% of MAGA voters supported the idea. Just 22% of traditional Republicans supported it, which is in line with the general public.
Moreover, the poll revealed divisions among Republican voters on every polling issue.
“Tracking ‘Republicans’ as a single group of partisans no longer tells a complete story,” said poll co-director John Geer in a press release.
While the number of MAGA Republicans decreased from its February 2025 high of 52%, nearly half of the Republicans who responded to the poll (44%) still identified as MAGA.
The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy surveyed 1,029 adults in English in Spanish between June 6 and June 10.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.