Column: President Trump’s America could face another war

The next four years of Donald Trump  in office could lead to international tensions rising between the U.S. and other nations, and in turn cause a change in the demographics we see on campus. 

Since Trump’s presidency, hostility between Trump and the leaders of other nations has increased, causing people to question the potential for the start of another war.  

There has been talk about the potential for war between a variety of nations and political groups like ISIS, Russia, China, and North Korea. 

How these wars would pan out is hard to predict. What would be the catalyst? Who would start the war? Who would be involved? Could we be on our way to World War III?

What can be predicted, however, is how war would impact UA. We would see a vast change in student body demographics and funding. 

I predict there will be a divide at the university between those that want to fight and those that will protest the war. 

Our current political situation in the U.S. is extremely divided between the Democrats and Republicans. If we were to go to war against one of these countries, how the war would start and our involvement would dictate the public’s response.

Related: Students share what they think of President Trump’s first 100 days

Due to the polarization of the country, it is likely that the people who are right-leaning would choose to side with the war and would be more likely to enlist and repeat the historical patterns that we saw at universities during World War II.

The liberal student body would likely reject the war efforts, similar to the university students during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

According to a New York Times article that was published in 1984, during the Vietnam War there was a vast rise in the amount of men enrolled at universities during the war in order to avoid the draft. 

The political demographics at the university would be vastly more liberal than it is now due to the left-wing rejection of the war. Because of the skewed political views on our campus, there will likely be a lot of political protests against Trump and the war.

If there was another war, the gender distribution on campus would likely be weighted towards having more females enrolled than males. 

There is already a rise in women in higher education, especially in STEM majors. 

In World War II the women had to fill the typical male jobs while the men were away at war. 

Related: UA’s Republican students speak up about why they support Trump

The STEM majors at UA would likely be filled with more females who would be seeking out STEM jobs in order to contribute to the war efforts. 

Rather than working at factories, which were the former traditional American male jobs, these roles would be filled by more women. 

This is partially due to the change in the American job field. As we have become more globalized, we have outsourced the traditional American jobs and are now more focused on technology and innovation.

However, the quality of education could possibly suffer at all public universities across the country if we were faced with war. This is because money would be taken from education and allotted to military efforts.

If the U.S. was to become engaged in another world war we would see a direct impact on who attends the university. College students would make the decision about whether or not to attend university, which would be directly correlated with their political beliefs. 

The Republican, Trump-supporting male students would be likely to enlist, or at least not resist the draft. The male Democrats would have more adverse feelings about the war, making them likely to try to avoid the draft and being involved in anti-war protests around the university.

We would see a rise in both women in secondary education and in STEM fields, as they would have to take the responsibility of many male-dominated jobs.

A war could negatively impact public university funding in order to improve military spending. 

Trump’s current international relations are showing signs that we could end up in another world war with the recent conflicts that have arisen between the U.S. and other nations. 

Follow Claudia Drace on Twitter.