Students in the 90s had also lived their entire lives under the counter-productive and utterly racist War on Drugs. That might have colored their attitude more than the leftist indoctrination bogeyman.
How much your opinions change once you're not in that environment can be amazing to both yourself and to the people who think they understand you because you were financially dependent on them.
New ideas or diversity or whatever: living by yourself 24/7 is a huge liberator of thought.