POLL: Confidence in US higher education has drastically declined
The sharpest disparity in confidence is between Republicans and Democrats, though both have seen decreases.
A Gallup poll released on July 11 shows confidence in higher education plummeting, no matter how the data is categorized.
A July 11 Gallup poll reveals that opinions about United States higher education has seen a sharp decline since 2015, with only 36% of polled Americans saying that they have confidence in the country’s colleges and universities.
This figure is down from 48% in 2018 and 57% in 2015.
Since 2018 when Gallup last included “higher education” as a category in its institutional evaluation, the percentage of Americans with a “great deal” of confidence in higher education dropped from 23% to 17%.
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Gallup organized the sample data according to four degrees of confidence: “Great deal,” “Quite a lot,” “Some,” and “Very little.”
When drawn along party lines, Gallup’s data showed Republicans who cited having either a “great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence in higher education dropping 37 points to 19%.
Democrats also lost some confidence in American education, dropping from 68% to 59%.
According to Gallup, “Democrats expressed concern about the costs, while Republicans registered concern about politics in higher education.”
Despite the general concern over the state of academia, Gallup also noted that among the 16 other institutions measured, higher education ranks fourth in confidence among the populace, behind small business, military, and police.
