Americans haven't lost faith in higher education, write Kevin Carey and Sophie Nguyen in a New America policy brief. "People may be less confident in higher education than they used to be, more questioning of its value, and more annoyed by its many faults." They worry a lot about the cost. But nearly everyone wants their children to get education and/or job training after high school.
Since 2015, Gallup polls show fewer people have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education, they concede. But Americans are "losing confidence in all kinds of institutions," including "the police, the presidency, schools, churches, courts, Congress, and companies." Higher ed does better than most. (Confidence in newspapers and broadcast journalism is very, very low.)
Educational attainment increasingly is linked to politics: Democratic voters, especially whites, are significantly more likely than Republicans to have college degrees. "A Pew survey shows that from 2012 to 2019, the percentage of Democrats who think colleges and universities have a negative impact on the country was statistically unchanged, dropping from 19 to 18 percent," write Carey and Nguyen. "Among Republicans, it increased from 35 percent to 59 percent."
Despite, both Republicans and Democrats want the government to invest more in making college affordable.
Parents' preferences haven't changed as much as the media's narrative suggests, they write. While 46 percent of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college” immediately after high school, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, only 4 to 5 percent want their children to go straight to the workforce.
Many want them to go to a two-year college or train for a job, which very likely will mean training at a community college. Those who want their child to enlist in the military are probably thinking of the GI Bill. Parents who want their kids to take to travel, pursue interests, serve on a mission or volunteer probably assume they'll be in college after a "gap year."
Nobody believes a high school diploma is a job-ready credential. I think parents are hoping for more alternatives to the long, expensive, classroom-based pursuit of bachelor's degrees.
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