Home Depot billionaire co-founder Bernie Marcus said Friday that the growing appeal to socialism in America comes out of the universities.

Marcus, during an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, discussed the deterioration of socialist Venezuela and Cuba, comparing the situations in those countries today with the realities there decades ago, pre-socialist rule. Marcus called the economic downturns in each of those countries, Cuba, in particular, a "perfect example of socialism gone wrong."

"almost 50 percent of students coming out of universities today believe that socialism is the answer. That's frightening to me..."

"They [Cuba] took a great country. They put it right down the drain in every way possible," Marcus said. "People are starving to death. Medical [care] is not available for them. And we have a group of people in Washington today, new representatives especially, that look at socialism as the way to go and if you don't think that's dangerous, I do."

Marcus further addressed where he believes the growing socialist sentiment among Americans is coming from.

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"It comes right out of the universities. You see students graduating today and a very high percentage...almost 50 percent of students coming out of universities today believe that socialism is the answer," Marcus said. "That's frightening to me because the things that made this country great, that created the wealth of this country, and I mean the wealth of every single person right down the line, the best medical care in the world, the best housing in the world, that's why people want to come here, is because of the system, and that's the free enterprise system."

A recent Campus Reform analysis backs up Marcus' views. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Socialist from the Bronx, recently unveiled her "Green New Deal," which contains a proposed 70 percent top tax rate among America's highest earners -- those making $10 million per year or more. As it turns out, the overwhelming majority of faculty and administrators at Ocasio-Cortez's alma mater, Boston University, financially supported Democrats and Democrat causes from 2017-2018.

In total, Boston University college employees donated $610,759.80 from 2017-2018. Of that amount, 97.57 percent were made to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations, while just 2.43 percent of the donations were made to Republican politicians or Republican organizations.

This analysis was just one of multiple studies Campus Reform conducted to uncover the political leanings of college faculty and administrators.

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Additionally, as Campus Reform noted in 2018, there were, at the time, more than 40,000 card-carrying members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. This, combined with the fervent support for Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders among young adults and college students in the 2016 Democratic primary, shows that Marcus' statement that the appeal to socialism comes out of the universities is accurate.

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