American views on higher education worsen, again

Just a quick post, as I’m on the road:

Americans now view higher education less favorably than we used to.

That’s the finding of a new Gallup poll.  Gallup has run this poll several times in recent history, and the results show a depressing downward curve. The number of people who view academia very positively has been declining.

Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).

“Some” is growing, which is better than it could have been.

I am also concerned by how these attitudes break down by groups, including political party, age, gender, and educational attainment.  The decline occurred across every one, albeit to different degrees:

(The numbers are for “% of U.S. adults with ‘a great deal’ or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education”. I couldn’t fit that legend into a screengrab.)

As you can see, Republicans, men, people over 55, and and those without a college degree are the most skeptical.  Democrats, women, people under 35, and folks with postgraduate degrees are the most favorable.

This decrease in attitude may shape various aspects of academic-community relationships.  Governmental funding (city, county, state, federal) comes to mind, especially as those entities juggle multiple funding demands. Declining faith in higher ed might discourage some would-be students from applying to study.  This development might also point the way to more attacks on the academy.

Yet we should place this poll in one context. Gallup asked people about their attitudes towards a range of institutions, and those results indicate widespread skepticism about all kinds of them:

I have many thoughts here – note the high positions of military and police – but wanted to locate higher ed on the list, because we look pretty good, compared to the rest.  Ahead of public K-12 and tech companies, to say nothing of big business and Congress.   So for academia, it could be worse!

There’s so much going on here, from the dread of student debt to right-wing politics to connections with general economic anxiety. but I need to stop now.  Over to you all for your thoughts.