And at a lot of other things, too. The University of Southern California did a study to determine whether the hostility displayed toward Academia by the Trump administration came as political theater or if it truly reflects what people think of higher education in America.
Perhaps the results, first released in February of this year, surprised them. They won't surprise readers here, but the strong bipartisan nature of the outcomes might. But before we get to Academia, let's take a look at the results regarding K-12 public education, which are disastrous for everyone involved (via The Corner):
Adults think U.S. public schools are doing a poor job at achieving what could reasonably be argued as schools’ primary aims, and this opinion does not vary substantially by partisan affiliation. For each of four purposes of our nation’s education system, approximately a third or fewer adults think schools deserve a grade of an A or B (Figure ES1). The greatest proportion of adults (40%) thinks schools deserve As or Bs in the goal of preparing students for college, followed by citizenship (29%), being good workers (28%), and preparing students for life (16%). Equal (or greater) numbers think schools are failing in three of the four areas.
Holy cow. Small wonder more parents opt to home-school, and states have begun pushing for voucher systems and school choice. These are no longer just Republican issues; this study shows that hardly anyone thinks that public education actually works any longer.
The chart here tells the main story:
On page 12 of the report, USC breaks out these results by political affiliation. On the fourth question, even 46% of Democrat respondents give either a D or F. That ramps up to 62% for Republicans and 56% for independents. The best assessment comes on the question of preparation for college, as seen above, but how does that translate into how the colleges themselves perform?
Oddly enough, this study never addresses that question. Instead, USC asked about student protests and DEI initiatives, both interesting topics, but a dodge around the kind of scrutiny the school applied to public education. However, even in these issues, there is plenty of bipartisan dissatisfaction about how Academia handles these issues.
Let's start with the protests. Most of the activities that have taken place on these campuses draw consensus-level disapproval:
Adults generally oppose disruptive forms of student protest, and support universities shutting them down. Specifically, as shown in Figure ES3, majorities think it is never appropriate for students to disrupt graduation ceremonies to protest (79%), write or draw protest messages on college property (76%), shout down speakers (67%), or occupy school buildings (56%). In contrast, a majority of respondents believe it is always appropriate for universities to support police arresting students who break laws during protests (53%).
Even the more common and modest kinds of student protest have only tepid and conditional support. Though not a majority, still large proportions of respondents believe it’s never appropriate that students skip class (46%), walk out (44%), or build an encampment (40%)—and very small proportions believe these activities are always appropriate (3-8%).
Across political affiliations, we found strong opposition to disruption of campus activities, vandalism, law/rule breaking, or things that make campus unsafe (less than a third support, with opposition a plurality or majority), and support for universities to curtail behaviors that cross those lines. However, greater proportions of Republicans support more authoritarian responses to student protests (e.g., shutting down protests, calling the police), and take the side of the institution.
Given that this has been the catalyst for Trump's crackdown on Academia, the industry finds itself deeply in the fringe on defending its policies and actions. Trump has also fought against discrimination in the guise of Diversity Equity Inclusion policies, where the split becomes much more partisan but still generates significant overall opposition:
Support for DEI initiatives showed some of the largest partisan gaps on our survey, with Democrats substantially more supportive than Republicans. While 58% of Republicans say it is never appropriate for job applicants to be required to write about their commitment to DEI, 23% of Democrats feel the same—a difference of 35 percentage points (Figure ES4). While 47% of Republicans say it is never appropriate for college students to be required to take classes about DEI, 10% of Democrats believe the same (37 percentage point difference). Similar partisan gaps were observed for creating college/university positions responsible for supporting DEI (44% of Republicans responding never appropriate versus 7% of Democrats) and requiring faculty/staff to be trained in DEI (35% R to 5% D responding never appropriate).
In other words, Trump and his administration are on firm ground in taking a hard line with the education establishment, including Academia. The public is highly dissatisfied with the performance of both, largely on a bipartisan basis, which means their political position is becoming untenable.
At the James G Martin Center, Regan Glass suggests that a crackdown on radical activists might improve the standing of Academia somewhat:
The survey states that 86 percent of respondents believe that it is “sometimes” or “always” okay for students to be arrested for breaking the law. Intriguingly, as Inside Higher Ed put it, “every example of an institution’s response to protests received a higher approval rating than any example of a protest action.” While protesting can be a civil way or a destructive way of sharing one’s thoughts about a political or social issue, it has never been the most widely popular form of communication. Even now, with the world in widespread disagreement about the situation in the Middle East, it is clear that protests are less popular than many students may think.
When asked why student protests have not only remained unpopular throughout history but have continued to decrease in popularity, Robert Cohen, a history professor at NYU, shared his thoughts. “Students, their role is to go to school, obey orders and come home.” As far as the public is concerned, “that’s what they’re supposed to do. Students who are protesting are breaking away from that role that they’re supposed to play.”
Perhaps. However, that ignores the role that education is supposed to play, too. People send their children and teens to school to prepare them for a responsible adult life, to learn enough to think for themselves, to socialize enough to understand different perspectives, but also to learn common values related to American citizenship. After several decades of transforming education into indoctrination into progressive ideology and training to become childish activists and trolls, people have lost all faith in these institutions, across the board and in every demographic.
The only real solution is to dismantle these institutions and instead create market-based systems that will respond to consumer incentives. Parents want their children prepared for a successful life in America, and that demand can create schools that will deliver on that desire -- if we get government out of the way.
