Higher education opinion improves after years of waning confidence

IOWA CITY — Over a long Legislative session that saw a renewed focus on higher education, Iowa lawmakers, analysts, regents, educators and students repeatedly cited a 2024 Gallup poll warning of waning confidence in colleges and universities.

“People are quickly awakening to the reality that higher education is facing a crisis of confidence,” Neetu Arnold, an analyst for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, told members of the Iowa House’s new higher education committee in January. “A recent Gallup poll found growing distrust of universities across political groups, but especially major declines among both Republican and Independent voters.

“The top reasons among dissatisfied respondents,” she said, “were political agendas, the wrong focus, and costs.”

Similarly, in his recent backing of a proposed Board of Regents policy to bar “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements for majors, minors, and certificates, regent David Barker pointed back to the widely-circulated poll.

“Public opinion polling shows a crisis in confidence in higher education,” Barker said last month. “The belief that colleges are indoctrinating students with fringe ideologies is one reason for that loss of confidence. We need to do something about it, and some version of this policy will be an important first step.”

But a new Gallup poll out Wednesday circling back to the question of Americans’ confidence in higher education shows a measurable rebound over the last 12 months — with the percent who reported “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence swelling to 42 percent from last year’s 36 percent, the lowest on Gallup record.

At the same time, the portion with “very little” or “no” confidence in higher ed dropped from a high of 32 percent last year to 23 percent this year.

“This represents the first time Gallup has measured an increase in confidence in its decade-long trend,” according to the 2025 report, which also marked the first drop in those reporting little to no confidence since Gallup began asking the question in 2015, when just 10 percent expressed distrust in colleges and universities.

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Given the decade-long incline in distrust that nearly intersected the decade-long decline in confidence, the total 42 percent of respondents with a quite a lot or a great deal of trust in higher ed today remains below the 57 percent of the initial group polled in 2015 who had confidence.

“After years of losing trust and confidence due to scandals, cost, and perceived irrelevance, higher education might be starting to make small gains again,” said Courtney Brown, vice president of impact and planning for the Lumina Foundation — an independent, private higher education-focused foundation that collaborated with Gallup on the confidence poll. “But those gains need to come with actual proof of the value they’ve created.”

‘Pushing their own agenda’

The Lumina Foundation-Gallup education survey, conducted by phone June 2 to 26, polled 1,402 American adults and involved larger samples of Black and Hispanic Americans — two groups with slightly higher-than-average confidence rates at 49 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

But higher ed confidence rose across most societal subgroups — including Republicans and Independents, who had seen some of the biggest drops in recent years.

The percent of Republicans with a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in four-year colleges and universities, per the recent poll, rebounded to 26 percent from last year’s low of 15 percent. Likewise, Independents’ confidence in four-year institutions swelled to 40 percent from 30 percent, and Democrats’ confidence reached 66 percent from 58 percent.

And confidence in two-year or community colleges was even stronger — with nearly half of Republicans now expressing quite a lot or a great deal of confidence, up from 36 percent last year; Independents’ confidence reached 52 percent from 46 percent; and Democrats are up to 69 percent from 67 percent.

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Across all groups polled, only 7 percent expressed very little confidence in community colleges, as opposed to 21 percent taking that negative view of four-year colleges and universities.

When asked why they felt the way they felt, a steady 21 percent of those with confidence in higher education said they feel “education is important,” while 14 percent said American colleges are “some of the best in the world,” and 12 percent valued the innovation happening across the campuses — up from just 5 percent last year.

Among those with little confidence in higher ed, a growing portion pointed to “political agendas” — reaching 38 percent, up from 28 percent last year. The largest chunk of that group with concerns about political bias — 17 percent — said campuses are too liberal or political, up from 12 percent. Another 11 percent expressed concern over “indoctrination/brainwashing/propaganda,” while 12 percent said colleges are “not allowing students to think for themselves/pushing their own agenda” — up from just 3 percent last year.

Other respondents expressed concern with students being “not properly educated” and with tuition being “too expensive,” both of which garnered 21 percent — a decrease on both counts, most notably in the cost category from 30 percent last year.

‘Thanks to strong oversight’

When asked about the improved higher education confidence scores this year, Iowa Rep. Taylor Collins — a Republican from Mediapolis who chaired the new higher ed committee and sponsored many of the bills that saw debate or even passage — cited the attention lawmakers, like those in Iowa, have paid it in recent months.

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"What you’re seeing is positive trends thanks to strong oversight of our higher education system,“ Collins told The Gazette. ”Voters demanded to see the focus of higher education clawed back from the lunacy it had become, and Iowa Republicans are doing exactly that.“

To the point that still less than half the respondents expressed quite a lot or a great deal of confidence in higher education — including just a quarter of Republicans for four-year institutions — Collins urged more improvement is needed.

"As indicated in the data, Americans’ lack of confidence in our higher education system still largely remains due to the political agenda pushed by many faculty and administrators, and the lack of intellectual diversity on campus,“ he said. ”As our centers like the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa, and the Centers for Civic Education at UNI and Iowa State are stood up, I hope we will continue to see Iowans' confidence rebound.“

Compelled by lawmaker and regent demands and directives, both Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa last fall debuted new centers focused on civics education and engagement — while lawmakers passed a new law requiring establishment of a new UI Center for Intellectual Freedom.

“The center affirms the value of intellectual diversity in higher education and aspires to enhance the intellectual diversity of the university,” according to House File 437, which mandated the center.

The House committee also introduced measures aiming to impose guidelines around general education requirements, require certain American history instruction, and prohibit DEI training or staffing.

Although not all those measures passed, the Board of Regents took action in some cases anyway — like with the proposed policy echoing House file language in prohibiting campuses from making students take courses with “substantial content that conveys DEI or CRT” to satisfy a major, minor or certificate.

Defining DEI as instruction conveying things like implicit bias, transgender ideology, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, gender theory, and racial or sexual privilege and defining CRT as an academic and legal framework denoting systemic racism as part of American society and embedded in laws, policies and institutions, the policy could affect majors or minors like “gender, women’s, and sexuality studies” or “African American studies.”

Given widespread opposition to the proposed policy — and concern it breaks the law — regents delayed their vote on the change until their meeting later this month.

But regent Barker agreed with Collins about the reason for the tide change in public opinion.

“The gains in confidence are coming from increased confidence that higher education issues are being looked at and dealt with,” Barker said. “And that is true for the State of Iowa.”

Praising the higher education committee in the House — the first since 1971 — as evidence of a renewed focus on higher ed, Barker said he hears from Iowans all the time.

“They are happy that the regents and Legislature is taking a look at some of the issues they’re worried about.”

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‘Partisan politics’

Democratic Rep. Ross Wilburn, representing Iowa State’s home of Ames and serving as ranking member of the higher ed committee, said he wants more Iowa-specific data — and suggested that as a better use of the state’s higher ed focus months ago.

“It would have been a more effective use of the time and research and how to apply that research had a task force been established first to say, OK, what is it we're looking at, what are some of the problems we’re hearing? What are benefits? How is it showing up to affect Iowans?” Wilburn said. “I think it would have been more useful, in a bipartisan way, to set up a task force before any legislation, any bills are proposed, to come to an agreement as to what aspect are we going to look at?”

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A task force — instead of a full-fledged committee — could have nailed down common themes, along with positives and negatives across constituent groups.

“And then what legislation could or should need to be passed to support the positive things or to try and get through any barriers,” Wilburn said.

Given such local data doesn’t exist, Wilburn said the major concerns he’s heard from constituents — anecdotally speaking — have to do with cost and politics.

“The predominant issues that I hear are affordability and concern that partisan politics is potentially negatively affecting the ability of higher education to fulfill its role in educating the public.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com