Confidence in Colleges and Universities Drops Following Campus Anti-Israel Encampments
“report indicated only 28% of Americans had ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in higher education as of May 2024”
According to a new analysis from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), public confidence in colleges and universities is way down. This was already a problem for higher education last summer but has gotten worse as anti-Israel protests and encampments have grown on campuses across the country.
As we recently noted, Emerson College in Boston is already experiencing a drop in enrollment, leading to layoffs. There is probably more of that on the way.
FOX News reports:
Confidence in colleges, universities reaches all-time low, new poll indicates
Confidence in colleges and universities has reached a new all-time low, according to a recent poll commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.
“In two AmeriSpeak panels representative of the U.S. household population, we asked Americans: ‘How much confidence, if any, do you have in U.S. colleges and universities?’” a press release from FIRE reads.
The question is similar to one asked by Gallup last year, which found that Americans who had a “great deal” of approval for institutions of higher education had plummeted from 57% in 2015 to 36% in 2023.
By comparison, FIRE’s report indicated only 28% of Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education as of May 2024.
Thirty percent similarly said they have “very little” or no confidence at all in higher education.
The FIRE report highlights the encampments specifically:
Confidence drops further after encampment protests
Not only did American confidence in colleges and universities sink since last summer, but it also experienced pronounced drops since FIRE last asked this question four months ago. Such drops coincide with encampment protests that emerged across the country in April and May.
In our February poll of 1,122 Americans, 31% reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in colleges and universities, whereas 28% of the 1,309 Americans polled in May reported the same. While the percentage of those who reported “very little” confidence or “none at all” remained constant at 30%, there was a slight tick up in those who reported “none at all” from 7% in February to 10% in May.
Indeed, since February, nearly every major subgroup — even political liberals and registered Democrats — experienced declines in the percent who reported “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence. Notably, in May no subgroup contained a majority that reported high levels of confidence.
Compared to the February poll, in the May poll, the largest drops within subgroups occurred among Americans ages 18-34, registered Democrats, Americans with a college degree, registered Republicans, white Americans, and women.
There is a simple way to solve this problem. Simply get back to the business of real education and drop all of the progressive, social justice activism.
Many schools seem unwilling or unable to do this.
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Crazy prediction:
College campuses will be disrupted when classes resume for the Fall/2024 semester.
The interesting aspect in my mind is whether any of the students, or faculty, or families have learned anything from what happened this past spring semester.
Wouldn’t it be prudent to get a Leave of Absence for the upcoming semester? and see how it all plays out? and use the tune to do something useful.
Like what?
Learn a job skill that pays.
Get a Bartender Certificate.
Get an ESL Teaching Certification.
Get your CDL-A or -B.
Learn West Coast Swung dancing.
Teach West Coast Swing dancing.
Learn to use a firearm — proficiently.
Learn a Self-Defense technique — proficiently.
Learn a language
-Get your A1 certification.
-Get your A2 certification.
Volunteer in the US.
Volunteer overseas.
Learn to drive a stick shift : )
The possibilities are kinda infinite — Use your imagination.
Let’s go people! Let’s turn this negative and turn it into a positive!!
Self-immolation once again.
If you can ski-
Spend the next few months getting your National Ski Patrol certification. You’ll learn CPR and First Responder stuff.
Most people don’t know how to ski. So if you want to get First Responder experience, Ski Patrol is a terrific opportunity.
You don’t need to be an expert skier.
Plus— in general , you’ll be around some really funny, decent people.
If this winter is fun for you, then for the rest of your life you can do ski patrol at most any ski resort in the northern hemisphere every winter, and ski for free.
And/or in the Southern Hemisphere. (New Zealand, Argentina) in the summers
Many, many variations on the above.
But the point is —Imho no rational, otherwise-intelligent person would be planning to be on almostany American college campus this fall.
Whoops my bad-that was meant in reply to my earlier post, not in reply to healthguyfsu
As long as I can remember colleges have misrepresented of the income potential of their degrees. Over that time college bureaucracies have grown by leaps and bounds, with parents and student loans supporting the bloat.
In business bloat is purged over reduced profitability, that has not been the case with colleges.
Also, colleges have paid generally useless administrators handsomely, while keeping most professors part time, paying them peanuts..
Now it is time to slash and burn, in the same way I did with mergers and acquisitions.
Today degrees are often worse than useless.
I worked my whole career for universities, and I used to have great respect for them. But in the last few years, spineless administrators have proliferated, and they have let students and their latest fads take over. The recent DEI craze has helped to destroy academic rigor, even in science fields.
The DEI regulations and oaths that eliminate freedom of speech and freedom of thought force the students and faculty into a form of groupthink. Jews are a convenient”other” for the groupthink to turn against, and it’s not surprising that pogroms are arising on their campuses. A couple of campuses have even had their own versions of Kristallnacht, where their students have broken windows both on and off campus.
The only solution (which will take years and new administrators) is to eliminate DEI and its warped thinking, much of it based on critical race theory.
Require respect for the bill of rights or stop all government funding.
Right now, no branch of the government has any respect for the Bill of Rights, viewing it as an undue encumbrance to what they want to do to us.
Subotai Bahadur
lefty hijacked america
I know everybody likes to bash on the universities.
But I live in Florida.
My kids are attending Florida Atlantic University study for a career as Anesthesia assistant.
FAU only cost $5000 per year for in-state tuition.
my kids got the bright futures academic scholarships, so it’s free.
After a four year degree studying biology, they will attend Barry University school of Anesthesia assistant, and after a two year program will be making $175,000 per year doing an interesting job giving anesthesia in an air conditioned environment with benefits.
Florida is well governed and universities have been forced to cut back or drop the DEI departments,
Pro Palestinian protest and encampments have been broken up by the police
So universities do have a place to get an education to enter the medical field.
Thank you, Governor DeSantis, and I look forward to your presidency four years from now
Smart.
My only concern for your family would be that an upper level seminar in Throuple-Inspired Transing Foundations of Aztec Basket Weaving Theory will probably not be offered at FAU nor at Barry.
Fortunately youall have some time to address situation .Don’t procrastinate.
“… there was a slight tick up in those who reported “none at all” from 7% in February to 10% in May.…”
True that 7% to 10% is a mere 3%. But that 3% is over 42% of the 7%, which is a huge increase in the number with zero faith in higher ed in the US. I wouldn’t call that a “slight tick up.”
Forgive my pollyanna point of view.
If there is a bright spot in the report of universities shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) it’s that falling enrollment might be reflected in rising enrollment in trade schools where a marketable trade would be learned. I refer you to docduracoat’s post concerning his kids. Also, The Bride’s nineteen year old great nephew is working for a major contractor and already earning a good wage for someone so young. He just bought an almost new car and is saving serious $$$ toward his future. College? Not for everybody.
.
“There is a simple way to solve this problem. Simply get back to the business of real education and drop all of the progressive, social justice activism.”
True.
But that is impossible at this point.
Those in positions of power at American Universities are not there because of their puissance as educators but as indoctrinators.
They don’t know how to educate and, in any case, honest teaching is contrary to their instincts and character (and mission).
As well ask a cat to live underwater or a rhinoceros to fly like a bird.
FJB
TRUMP2024!