In conversations with college students across the country, the same quiet admission keeps surfacing: They are tired of being told what to think, and unsure anyone is willing to solely teach them.
A new project launched by a progressive media group underscores just how seriously the Left is taking the influence of organizations like Turning Point USA on college campuses. But rather than being a neutral effort to “balance” viewpoints, initiatives like More Perfect University reveal a coordinated push to shape campus culture through curated messaging and activist training.
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Backed by allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the effort aims to flood campuses with content creators who advance a specific ideological narrative. More Perfect University presents itself as TPUSA’s mirror image, just another nonprofit group competing for the same generation. However, a fundamental difference exists, not political but structural: one invites students to honest discourse, while the other enlists students to amplify a platform.
THE YOUNG, VIOLENT POLITICAL LEFT
What higher education increasingly lacks is the freedom to speak without fear and to engage with new ideas on their own terms, not someone else’s agenda.
College has long been portrayed as a space for free thought and open conversation. However, that expectation has been silently eroded, often met with subpar replacements. Pew Research finds that 7 in 10 people believe higher education is headed in the wrong direction. Nearly half say colleges are doing a fair or poor job exposing students to a wide range of viewpoints, and 46% say the same about opportunities for students to express their own views. The free exchange of ideas, once the defining feature of campus life, has become increasingly hard to find.
The similarities and the differences
It is clear that college students are a source of untapped potential and an often underestimated force. Those entering higher education arrive with enormous capacity, energy, and a deep desire to matter: to contribute something meaningful to the world they are inheriting. This is a common trend that all nonprofit groups engaging with youth recognize.
Where they diverge is their utilization of that potential.
Whatever one thinks of its political positions, TPUSA was built around a model of direct engagement. Its “Pick Up the Mic” initiative encourages students from any background to challenge the organization’s views. TPUSA chapters have hosted open debate events under the banner “Prove Me Wrong: Any Topic, Any Take,” drawing students across the political spectrum to argue, question, and push back.
More Perfect University’s launch avoids this approach. Founder Faiz Shakir states the goal plainly: “We’ve seen the success of the Right, and we aim to rival it by being a thought leader on campuses.”
That is not mentorship. That is recruitment. There is a meaningful difference between teaching a young person to challenge common thought and enlisting them to advance an ideological stance and predetermined conclusions, with no intention of hearing the other side. One builds a mind while the other builds an audience.
What we risk
The deeper concern here is not political, it is human. Young adults in college are at a stage of life defined by identity formation, and this is where mentorship matters most. When an organization offers approval from a political community as its primary reward, the natural human need to belong and be accepted becomes a lever, not a foundation.
The result: a generation afraid to ask themselves why and trained to appeal and recruit their peers with approved talking points; a rinse-repeat cycle of rhetoric. It reinforces a system of assumed betrayal when countered with anything different. Rather than seeking an opportunity for conversation, it leaves the pursuit of truth subordinate to loyalty.
There are substantial consequences from fostering this kind of thinking. If left unchecked, what may be taken as just differing political opinions can easily escalate to a form of unprecedented herd-mentality thinking and ultimately mass psychosis. This is when we see extreme actions taken against a different perspective, to the point of dehumanizing others.
Honest discourse is not an instinct, it is a cultivated skill. The ability to hear a challenging argument, engage with curiosity, and follow that engagement seeking truth rather than victory is what distinguishes conversation from debate, and community from social commodity.
Over the years, we have seen firsthand the cost of its absence. Generation Z has deeper questions that can’t find easy answers in political rhetoric or rehearsed talking points. It will require addressing the root of why we believe what we do, and whether it changes society for the better. College students don’t need another organization teaching them how to amplify someone else’s message. They need spaces, across political lines, where their questions are actually heard and taken seriously, and where they’re challenged without being manipulated.
If More Perfect University genuinely wants to help young people make the world better, the first step is trusting them to think for themselves.
Students aren’t a means to an end, they are the end. They deserve to be taught how to think, not what to think.
Victoria Akyea, MPH, is a doctoral student and public health professional at the Institute for Women’s Health, where she focuses on women’s health, emerging adult research, and policy.
