The Daily has released the results of its Spring 2025 Campus Poll, which you can read here.
We followed up on a few of the questions from the fall poll, conducted in October. How do students feel about University President Michael Schill? How do they feel about President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden? Are students satisfied with their Northwestern experience?
Here’s how things stand today.
Schill’s approval numbers mixed, not significantly different
In the fall, Schill’s net approval — his approval rating minus his disapproval rating — was +1.4%, with 33.7% approving and 32.3% disapproving. (Note: we’ve gone back and reweighted the fall poll data using the spring poll methodology for fair comparisons, so these numbers may not exactly match previously published data.)
Schill’s numbers this time are slightly less favorable. His net approval rating from the spring poll is -2.3%, with 31.9% approving and 34.2% disapproving.
Similar to the fall, upperclassmen gave Schill lower approval ratings than first years. First years gave Schill a +5.3% net approval rating, while fourth years gave Schill a -9.8% net approval rating.
Moderate and conservative students had more favorable views of Schill than their liberal counterparts, with 34% approving and 27.7% disapproving, compared to 31.6% approving and 36.2% disapproving among students identifying as liberal.
Large majority of students at least somewhat satisfied with their NU experience
About 85% of students said they are least somewhat satisfied with their experience at NU, with 32.9% of students “strongly satisfied.” Compared to data from The Daily’s Fall 2024 Campus Poll, students hold similar opinions two quarters later — overall, respondents confirmed that they are mostly content at NU.
First years were least likely to say that they are “strongly satisfied” with their experience at 28.7%. However, they were also the least likely to say they’re “strongly dissatisfied,” with this answer making up only 0.5% of first-year respondents.
By the end of your time at NU, you might expect to be happier with your experience, as 34.6% of fourth years said they are “strongly satisfied,” the largest percentage of any year.
Students overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s job performance
In The Daily’s Fall 2024 Campus Poll, 11.1% of respondents said they “strongly” disapproved of then- President Joe Biden’s job performance. In contrast, 86.6% of respondents to The Daily’s Spring 2025 Campus Poll said they “strongly disapprove” of the Trump administration.
Some of this disapproval could be attributed to the general political climate at NU: 80.6% of respondents to the spring 2025 poll said they are “somewhat liberal” (40.8%) or “very liberal” (39.8%). In the fall, 37.9% of students said they are “very liberal” and 38.1% said they are “somewhat liberal.”
A little more than half of this spring’s respondents said they are “somewhat political,” 19.9% said they are “very political” and 23% said they are “not political.” The percentages for political engagement across grade levels were relatively similar. Students were more likely to say they were “very political” with 24.2% in the fall, compared to 19.9% this spring.
Since the fall, NU has seen an increase in oversight by the federal government, including a $790 million funding freeze in April.
Students who consider themselves more political tend to say NU should not take a deal from the federal government to restore funding, if a deal was offered. About 20% of respondents who say they are “very political” said a deal might be acceptable depending on the terms, while 70% said NU should not take a deal.
Students who are “somewhat political” overwhelmingly want NU to not take a deal at all (49.1%) or would be OK with a deal depending on the terms (40.1%). Students who say they are “not political” mostly say NU should not take a deal (30.6%) or that it would depend on the terms (41.3%).
The Trump administration’s revocations of student visas at colleges across the country has also impacted student decisions in various ways, especially for those who have higher political engagement.
Of students who say they are “very political,” 13.5% say they are reconsidering plans to stay in the United States after graduation, and 14.5% say they refrain from making political statements, particularly on social media.
A majority of students say U.S. should change Middle East policies and give Palestine more support
Student responses on U.S. involvement in the war in Israel and Palestine shifted slightly from fall 2024 to spring 2025.
In the Spring 2025 Campus Poll, the percentage of students who said the U.S. should support Israel more than it does dropped from 5.4% to 3.6%. Conversely, the percentage of students who said the U.S. should support Palestine more than it does ticked up to 66.4% in the spring compared to 60.9% in the fall.
About 11% of fall 2024 respondents said the U.S. should continue its policies, and 23% said they had no opinion or preferred not to answer. Only 5.5% of spring 2025 respondents said the U.S. should continue its current policies, and an aggregated 24.5% said they have no opinion or prefer not to answer.
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