The average rating from Democrats rose after 2000, while the average rating among Republicans fell. There was only a small gap in average ratings in the 1990s, but by 2012 Democrats rated the honesty and ethical standards of college teachers substantially higher.
I looked at two other occupations for comparison. I didn't have time to do all years, so I just took 1990, 2000, and 2012. For journalists:
R D Diff.
1990 3.09 3.28 0.19
2000 2.66 3.15 0.49
2012 2.57 3.21 0.64
Also divergence, although it grew more in the 1990s--most of the divergence on college teachers was after 2000.
For business executives:
R D
1990 3.19 3.10 -0.09
2000 3.18 3.03 -0.15
2012 3.03 2.81 -0.22
Maybe a slight divergence, but nothing dramatic. The substantial changes are for two groups that are favorite targets for conservatives. It's also worth noting that there are obvious reasons that the ratings of executives would have declined between 2000 and 2012, just because of the state of the economy. However, that doesn't apply to college teachers--the economy has ups and downs, but the amount and quality of what professors do doesn't change much from year to year. So my guess is that conservative media outlets just started running more stories about outrages on college campuses, and ratings among Republicans declined as a result. The rise among Democrats might have been a reaction to that, but I think it's more likely to be a continuation of the previous upward trend (which I would attribute to more people having attended college).
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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