Overshadowed by the presidential race has been another set of polls this campaign season.
They expose declining confidence. Low approval ratings. Financial worries. Mistrust.
A series of surveys conducted or released during the primary and general election campaigns show widespread skepticism about how universities and colleges are run, how much they cost, and whether they’re worth the money.
Nearly half of people surveyed in August by Public Agenda, for example, said a higher education is no longer necessarily a good investment, because so many students go so far into debt to get one.
That’s about the same proportion of university and college graduates who are less than certain their degrees were worth the money, according to the Gallup Purdue Index, released in February.
The escalating cost of college is why seven out of 10 respondents to that Public Agenda poll said that even applicants who are qualified to go no longer have the chance. Nearly 60 percent said colleges mainly care about the bottom line, and 44 percent that they’re wasteful and inefficient. And in a particularly ominous trend for higher-education institutions, nearly 60 percent said having a college education is no longer really necessary for a person to be successful. Eighty-six percent want colleges to provide more college counseling for students who do go.
