By Graham Andrews and Amanda Schaffer
Public confidence in higher education ticked lower in the latest Gallup polling, with only 38% of Americans saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in higher education as compared to 42% from a year ago. While the overall decline is modest, what is unusual this year is that the latest decline appears driven largely by Democratic respondents. The latest numbers show that 50% of respondents who identify as Democrats have “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence,” down from 61% last year and 56% in 2024.
Despite the declines, roughly three-quarters of Americans report at least “some” confidence in colleges and universities (including 65% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats). Furthermore, the American public still has more confidence in higher education than many other major American institutions. Higher education trails only small businesses, the military, and the police in overall trust. Among Democrats, higher education remains second only to small businesses in terms of “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence.”
In a trend spanning several decades, Americans have been growing more pessimistic and less trustful of institutions in general. Gallup has tracked Americans’ confidence in 14 core institutions in the United States (such as banks, the presidency, big business, television news, the church/organized religion, Congress, the military, etc.) since the early 1990s, and 12 out of the 14 are currently at or near their lowest confidence levels on record. While Americans’ trust in institutions is declining overall, higher education has seen the most dramatic declines.
Additionally, gaps in trust among Republicans and Democrats have widened over recent years, with this year representing the largest partisan gap on record. Democrats now report 13 percentage points less confidence than Republicans in U.S. institutions overall.
In June, The Washington Post published a story on recent efforts by colleges and universities to regain public trust. The outlet mentioned Yale University’s recent report on trust in higher education, another report convened by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Washington University in St. Louis President Andrew Martin on the state of scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock’s opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal providing recommendations on what colleges can do to restore trust, and AAU’s recent statement on “A Mission to Serve the Nation” as examples of higher education’s efforts at “self-scrutiny.” AAU President Barbara R. Snyder told The Post that AAU’s statement was an effort to provide an answer to those who question what America’s leading research universities stand for and how we serve the American people. Gallup’s latest poll, however, underscores the need for colleges and universities to continue their efforts to build public trust.
A companion survey by the Lumina Foundation investigates why some Americans have lost confidence in higher education and why others remain supportive.
Among those who say they lack confidence, concerns about affordability and cost have become more prominent compared to last year. Perceptions that campuses are driven by political agendas remain above their 2024 levels, but have declined from last year’s peak. At the same time, the share of skeptics who say colleges are not preparing students for the workforce has fallen for two consecutive years and now accounts for about one-quarter of that group, down from 35% in 2024.
On the positive side, the reasons people do trust higher education point toward a growing recognition of the value of education. Among Americans who express confidence in the sector, a rising share say that colleges and universities provide good training in critical thinking and other skills. That proportion has increased markedly over the past two years.
Graham Andrews is senior research analyst at AAU; Amanda Schaffer is research analyst at AAU.