The Massive Collapse in College Confidence Isn’t Getting Any Better
Democrats join Republicans in skepticism as a new poll shows the drop in support beyond other institutions continues.
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America’s collapse in confidence in higher education — with support for colleges falling four times as much as for other government and civic institutions — doesn’t appear to be getting better anytime soon.
Gallup polls over the last decade have shown a decline in support of colleges and universities from a high of 57% of respondents having a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in them in 2015 to a low of 36% in 2023 and 2024.
Despite an uptick in support to 42% in 2025, it dropped back to 38% this year, the latest poll by Gallup and the nonprofit Lumina Foundation released this week shows.
Contributing to the decline, and the seeming uptick last year not holding, is an 11-point drop in support from Democrats, who have long been bigger backers of higher education than Republicans, from 61% last year to 50% this year.
The 19-percentage-point decline since 2015 is nearly four times larger than the 5-percentage-point decline — from 32% in 2015 to 27% today — Gallup has measured for other “core institutions” including Congress, the United States Supreme Court, big business and organized religion.
“Confidence in higher education is still very fragile,” said Courtney Brown, vice president of impact and planning at Lumina. “We see that over and over again.”
The biggest concerns across all adults, according to the poll, are ideological differences over what is taught in college classrooms, a frequent target of President Trump and his supporters, and doubts about whether the benefits of college are worth the cost.
The findings are in keeping with a fall 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center which found up from 56% in 2020.
The repeated negativity over higher education has some universities studying why the public is losing confidence in them and how they can reverse the trend.
“Trust in higher education has declined faster than in other institutions and sectors,” a “Whether or not a diploma has enduring value depends on what it signifies: personal effort, professional skill, intelligence, knowledge, expertise. If the public ceases to believe that colleges and universities are fostering such qualities, support for higher education will necessarily suffer.”
Though not as dramatic, public confidence in all institutions that have been traditional pillars of government and society has declined over time. The 27% of support for other institutions — an average of high confidence in 14 institutions Gallup considers “core” to society — is just one point above its low of 26% in 2023.
“Americans’ confidence in U.S. institutions remains historically low,” Gallup reported.
“Americans no longer appear to share a broad faith in core civic, social and government institutions,” Gallup added. “Instead, their confidence varies with .”
Despite the large declines, Americans have more confidence in higher education than many other institutions measured by Gallup, including Congress, with just 9% support, as well as big business, the criminal justice system, television news and newspapers — all under 20%.
Public schools have also lost support over time. A separate Gallup poll in 2025 found that dissatisfaction with public schools had risen from 57% in 2001 to 73% last year.
And the latest poll this week shows public schools have 27% of respondents with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence, down from 31% in 2015 and highs of 41% in 2003 and during the pandemic in 2020.
For higher education, the new poll found that political differences were a major reason for skepticism, with 30% of respondents citing as concerns the political and cultural battle over what schools teach and how much ideology is part of lessons.
Though a majority of Republicans — 56% — had strong confidence in higher education in 2015, it hit a low of 19% in 2023 as Trump and supporters sparked national debates over admissions, speech and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies at schools.
Republican support has bounced back slightly to 23% this year, but it’s now Democrats that are losing confidence in colleges.
After 61% of Democrats reported having a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence just last year, only 50% did this year.
“Republicans pretty much stayed the same this year,” Brown said. “It was really Democrats that dropped down and account for some of the decrease that we’re seeing.”
She declined to attribute the drop in Democratic support to changes the Trump administration has made at colleges, placing it more on affordability and value concerns. She noted that support for colleges is low across the board, with less than half of all college graduates reporting strong confidence.
“Everybody’s kind of beginning to level out at the lower level,” she said.
At the same time, the broader Gallup survey found Democratic confidence across all core institutions at just 23% — its lowest since the polls began in 1979.
And Gallup polling earlier this year found that — personal finances, crime, the environment and quality of life among the 30 aspects measured — in Trump’s second term than either political party has had since 2000, even when the other party is in power.
Among 31% of those polled, the most cited reason for skepticism about college was its cost and whether it is a good value for students.
“Americans across the political spectrum are asking harder questions about value and affordability, and whether higher education is actually preparing people for the workforce,” Brown said. Those questions aren’t going away.”
The costs and benefits of college have come under extra scrutiny this year, as new college graduates have faced a tough job market that multiple reports have called or a Brown, though, noted that cost concerns have long been a big issue.
Discussing the long-term trend at a forum earlier this year, Brown said polls suggest the decline in support “isn’t a loss of belief, but a growing expectation” that colleges show how they bring value to students.
“People still believe degrees matter, but they’re asking for clearer signals, stronger connections to opportunity and more transparency around outcomes,” she said.
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Patrick O’Donnell is a correspondent at 91ɬ, covering the impact of the pandemic on America's education system
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