What must college leaders do to restore confidence?

Americans are losing faith in higher education, and college leaders should look in their mirrors for the reasons. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 48% of the public has “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. That’s 9% lower than in 2015, the largest drop among all the 16 institutions – including Congress, the presidency, banks, and newspapers – surveyed over that period, writes Michael T Nietzel for Forbes.

The decline is largest among Republicans, whose confidence has fallen 17%, compared to a six-point drop among Democrats and a four-point slide with Independents. These results mirror a Pew Research Center survey last year, where 58% of Republicans and Republican-leaners said that colleges had a negative effect on the country (up from 45% the prior year). Conversely, 72% of Democrats and Democrat-leaners believed higher education had a positive effect, about the same as in prior years. Partisan divide notwithstanding, a 2017 New America survey found that 58% of all adults believed that colleges put their own institutional interests ahead of those of students, and this suspicion was stronger among millennials.

Declining confidence in higher education is not merely a partisan issue. It signals that real reforms are necessary. Changing how we finance institutions and fund students are two changes that can restore some lost confidence.
Full report on the Forbes site