Faith in higher education hits record lows, and rightfully so

For decades, colleges have been gatekeepers to success — thanks to the perception that you need a degree to land a decent job.

But those days are numbered. Americans have finally had enough.

Faith in higher education has hit a new low, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Only 36% of Americans say they have confidence in colleges and universities, with just 19% saying they have a “quite a lot” of faith and 17% “a great deal.”

That represents a 12% drop in confidence since 2018 and a staggering 21-point drop since 2015.

Between the student loan crisis and rampant campus craziness — from woke curriculum to out-of-control language policing — is it any wonder?

The American public just witnessed their president make a legally doomed attempt to wipe out billions in student debt held by millions of borrowers who learned the hard way that a degree isn’t necessarily a ticket to a high-paying job.

In fact, more than 50% of students from a third of American colleges make less than the average high school graduate. 

The master’s program with the worst debt-to-earnings ratio of any major school in the country is the film program at Columbia University, a prestigious school with a $13 billion endowment. And now taxpayers — and not the university — could be on the hook for bailing them out.

Why would Americans have any faith in a system that drains students’ bank accounts and leaves many unlikely to fill them back up?

Meanwhile, schools have jacked up tuition by 748% since 1963. And many had the nerve to charge students attending classes over Zoom the full rate during the pandemic.

And that’s not to mention the woke insanity that has taken over colleges. Hardly a day goes by without another campus horror story capturing headlines.

Students at elite law schools like Yale have shouted down conservative speakers on campus, acting more like petulant toddlers than future lawyers and judges.

Stanford University’s IT department even released a guide for avoiding “harmful language.” There’s no better way to damage your school’s credibility than declaring that words like “American” and “grandfather” are offensive.

And colleges have completely abdicated their role as bastions of free speech and robust debate. In fact, a quarter of US college students say that it’s at least sometimes acceptable to shut down speech they don’t like with violence.

Americans are simply tired of spending thousands of dollars to send their teen to college, only to get a language police officer with a gender theory degree out the other end.

But a revolution is coming — and young people are at the helm.

Many Gen Zers, myself included, are waking up to the fact that colleges are simply not living up to their promises. 

There are currently a million fewer students in college than there were before the pandemic. Meanwhile, trade schools and apprenticeship programs are flourishing.

In fact, four in 10 Zoomers don’t think college degrees are necessary.

Colleges are in for a huge market correction because they no longer hold a monopoly over young peoples’ perception of success.

Corporations like IBM, Tesla, and Google are eliminating degree requirements to attract enterprising young employees who paved their own path.

I’m glad to see the American public has woken up to the reality that higher education is not worthy of our trust — especially as a college dropout myself.

I left NYU with a 4.0 GPA after the school attempted to charge the full price tag for remote learning in the pandemic, and I’ve quickly learned that a fancy institution’s stamp of approval doesn’t determine my personal worth.

But I hope this crisis of faith helps colleges and universities rise to the occasion, not crumble.

Higher education has a crucial role in society — from producing scientific discoveries to facilitating robust debate to incubating the next generation of doctors, engineers and Supreme Court justices.

Campuses should be a place where bright minds mingle, not where language is policed. We need them as bastions of intellectual curiosity and free speech. 

It’s time for institutions that got rich on federally backed loans and false promises to return to that core mission.