US adults confidence in higher education declines: Gallup report

The confidence of US adults in higher education has drastically declined from 57% in 2015 to 36% who still show confidence.

While the US is immensely popular among aspirants looking to study abroad, its own citizens have lost their confidence in higher education. According to the report of Gallup, an increasing number of US adults have little or no confidence in higher education. Those who have a lot of confidence in higher education are 36%, adults who have some confidence are 32%, and those who have little or no confidence are 32%.

It is a significant drop from 2015, when Gallup found that 57% of adults had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence and only 10% had little or no confidence in higher education.

For the latest report, Gallup collaborated with the Lumina Foundation. The survey is based on the Gallup telephone conversation with the participants from June 3 to June 23. The historical trend review has shown that confidence has dropped among all important subgroups in the U.S. population.

Americans express more confidence in community colleges

On seven aspects of higher education including student experience, affordability and quality, the citizens express more confidence in the community colleges as compared to the four-year colleges and universities. A total of 58% of adults said that they have more confidence in two-year colleges that offer affordable education, and only 11% showed similar interest in four-year courses. 81% of participants showed no or little confidence in the four-year system and were not sure if it was worth the cost.

41% who had no confidence in higher education said that colleges are being trying to “indoctrinate” or “brainwash” students, they said its "too liberal" and not allowing students to think for themselves. 37% were critical about education not providing the relevant skills for employment and they said that college degrees do not have much meaning. 28% did not have confidence due to the costs involved like high student debt levels and high tuition fees. Other less affecting factors included political unrest, quality of teaching, and unequal access to college.

Overall, the majority of Americans do not opine that higher education is on the right track, only 31% think it's going right whereas 68% think that it is in the wrong direction.

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