What’s New
Mistrust in America’s colleges has grown in the last five years, according to survey results released by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday. Seven in ten Americans said that the United States’ higher-education system is generally heading in the wrong direction — an increase from 56 percent of respondents who answered the same in 2020.
That rising disapproval is coming from both sides of the aisle. More than three-quarters of Republicans and those who lean to the right said that colleges are going astray, compared to 65 percent of their Democratic counterparts. For both groups, that share has risen by at least 10 percentage points since 2020.
The Details
In addition to a question about higher ed’s direction, the survey, which is nationally representative, asked 3,445 adults to rate how well colleges were performing certain functions. For each role, they could select “excellent,” “very good,” “good,” “fair,” or “poor,” along with “not sure.”
Overall, the responses were lackluster. When asked how well colleges were preparing students for well-paying jobs, 55 percent said the institutions were doing fair or poor, the two lowest ratings. Forty-nine percent answered the same when asked to judge higher ed’s ability to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. And around 45 percent said colleges do a fair or poor job exposing students to a wide range of viewpoints and opinions.
On things like enabling students to express their own views and job preparation, Republicans held more negative views of colleges’ competence than Democrats. But both groups were similarly sour on cost. Eighty-two percent of those who lean right and 78 percent of those who lean left rated the higher-ed system as doing fair or poor when it comes to keeping tuition affordable.
There is one bright spot. A majority of respondents — 55 percent — rated higher ed as either excellent, very good, or good at advancing research and innovation. Only 32 percent said that colleges did a fair or poor job in that regard.
The Backdrop
The public’s mounting skepticism of American colleges is not a new story — it’s an issue that keeps college presidents up at night, metaphorically if not literally. Over the past decade, Gallup has tracked Americans’ waning confidence in higher ed.
More recently, however, some evidence has emerged that complicates this picture. In July, Gallup and the Lumina Foundation reported that Americans’ confidence had actually increased. More than 40 percent of respondents said they had either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the sector — up from 36 percent in 2023 and 2024, though still lower than the 57 percent who responded that way in 2015.
And a September poll conducted by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy found something similar: Forty-seven percent of the 1,030 people surveyed reported a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. A majority of respondents expressed that level of confidence in colleges’ ability to conduct research that saves lives.
It seems college presidents have taken note of their best selling point. When going toe to toe with the Trump administration, those leaders have highlighted their research portfolios in making their case.
The Stakes
Still, the trust deficit is unlikely to be closed any time soon. While there’s evidence that Americans think positively of higher ed’s research capabilities, there remains ample concern over things like price and political bias.
Results from another public-opinion survey, also released on Wednesday, bore that out. Administered by scholars at Northeastern, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities and the University of Rochester, that survey found general opposition to federal-funding cuts to science and to health research. And overall, 75 percent of the more than 31,000 respondents reported either some or a lot of trust in colleges “to do what is right.”
Yet there was also a lot of concern expressed over tuition costs, student debt, antisemitism, racism, free speech, liberal bias, and transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports.
