When I was an undergraduate in the ’60s, Princeton’s faculty was regarded as liberal or progressive while the student body was regarded as leaning conservative. Of course, in those days, there were liberal Republicans (Nelson Rockefeller of New York, for example) as well as conservative ones and conservative Democrats (Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, for instance) as well as liberal ones. Even though the required age to vote was 21, I volunteered for John Kennedy’s campaign in 1960. Nevertheless, I paid hardly any attention to partisan politics as an undergraduate. As far as I am aware, most of my classmates rarely shared partisan political views.
If conservatism really is “crashing” on campus today, my guess is the cause may be the utter collapse of the Republican Party’s conservative identity along with the near total absence of Democrats who espouse conservative policies. I worry less about the health of conservatism on Princeton’s campus than in Washington.