Public confidence in American higher education has fallen dramatically over the past decade, dropping from 57% in 2015 to just 36% in 2024, according to a new report from Gallup and Lumina Foundation. But the students and graduates living that experience tell a strikingly different story.
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The College Reality Check: What Students Experience vs. What America Believes, released this month as part of the Lumina-Gallup 2026 State of Higher Education study, draws on responses from nearly 4,000 currently enrolled associate and bachelor's degree students and nearly 6,000 college graduates. The findings suggest that the loudest criticisms driving public doubt — campus politicization, poor career preparation and unaffordable tuition — do not match what most students report experiencing.
"While these concerns are leading skeptics of higher education to question the value of a degree or the intentions of the institutions awarding them, currently enrolled college students report markedly different experiences," the authors write.
Among the 23% of Americans who express little or no confidence in higher education, the top concern is campus politicization, with 38% of skeptics citing indoctrination or universities pushing ideological agendas — a figure that jumped 10 percentage points over 2024. Yet when researchers asked students directly, political grievances barely registered.
Between 64% and 74% of Democratic, Republican and independent students alike said all or most of their professors encourage open dialogue and support all voices during controversial discussions. Just 2% of all students — including only 3% of Republicans — said they felt they did not belong on campus because of their political views.
Sixty-nine percent of students overall said they feel a sense of belonging on their campus, a figure that held relatively steady across gender, race and party lines.
The second most cited reason for skepticism is that colleges fail to teach job-relevant skills. Here again, students push back on that narrative. Roughly nine in 10 currently enrolled students — 93% — said they are confident their coursework is teaching them career-relevant skills. Eighty-eight percent said they believe their degree will help them secure employment after graduation.
