WASHINGTON, D.C. — An increasing proportion of U.S. adults say they have little or no confidence in higher education. As a result, Americans are now nearly equally divided among those who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence (36%), some confidence (32%), or little or no confidence (32%) in higher education. When Gallup first measured confidence in higher education in 2015, 57% had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence and 10% had little or none.

The latest results are based on a June 3-23 Gallup survey that gauged Americans’ confidence in various institutions. A follow-up story reporting on the remainder of institutions will be published in the coming days.

This year, Gallup and Lumina Foundation partnered to better understand the nature of confidence in higher education. The research includes the trend results reported above from Gallup’s June telephone survey as well as new results from a contemporaneous web survey of more than 2,000 Gallup Panel members.

A review of the historical trends shows that confidence has dropped among all key subgroups in the U.S. population over the […]