What are American sentiments about higher education? How have feelings shifted over time? And, more importantly, what can be done? In this episode, we are joined by Courtney Brown, Vice President of Impact & Planning at the Lumina Foundation, to discuss Gallup’s survey on American higher education, the challenge of ROI and the perceptions of politicization on college campuses.
Matt Sterenberg (00:01.014)
All right, Courtney, welcome to the podcast.
Courtney Brown (00:04.459)
Happy to be here.
Matt Sterenberg (00:06.444)
So super simple, easy question to kick us off Courtney. What is the state of higher education in America today? And it’s a big question, obviously I’m joking, but you’ve done some phenomenal work here. And I think this is a really fascinating topic given where we’re at. But can you give us some of the research that you’ve been doing and what is the state of higher ed in America today according to the sentiments, the opinions and the people?
that live here.
Courtney Brown (00:38.879)
Well, you’re right. It’s a simple question and a complicated answer. There’s a lot going on and a lot of focus on higher ed right now. We have done a lot of polling with people over the years partnering with Gallup to understand the state of higher education, to understand what people are thinking about higher ed. Because in the news, we hear a lot about it. The reality is this really interesting paradox because on one hand, we see confidence in higher ed dropping. We see people concerned about
and questioning is college worth it? On the other hand, we see that people value it, that they hope to actually get education after high school. And so it’s really trying to figure out what’s going on in the environment that’s creating both of these lack of confidence and an increased value.
Matt Sterenberg (01:30.152)
And it’s obviously shifting over the last decade. How is it shifting and where have you seen the trends over the last 10 years?
Courtney Brown (01:40.031)
Yeah, so over the last 10 years, it’s interesting because Gallup has for many years done polling in the United States, questioning people about different institutions in the US. Police, small business, Congress, Supreme Court, president, higher education, K-12, all kinds of different things. And so we can track where Americans have confidence in these things over the last 10 years. And interestingly enough, when we look at just higher education,
about 10 years ago, Americans had a great deal of confidence in higher education. know, over two thirds of Americans had a great deal of confidence. And over that time, since that high point, we have seen confidence slowly decrease in higher education. It reached a low point last year in 2024 where only 36 % of Americans had a high confidence. So, you know, we had a high of about 60%.
and coming all the way down to 36 % is quite a drop down. The good news in a way is confidence increased a little bit this past summer. in redoing, they do the poll every summer and confidence is back up to 42%. So that is 42 % of Americans have a good deal of confidence in higher education and 23 % have little to no confidence in higher education.
you know, that’s concerning to look and see a quarter of Americans have little confidence in higher ed when 10 years ago, only 10 % had little confidence.
Matt Sterenberg (03:20.342)
And I’m curious too, and this is just what’s going through my head, but how much of it is a product of what else is going on? know, so for instance, the economy is if the economy is struggling, the confidence in higher ed of in general, it’s harder to get a job, let’s say, or get the job that I want. Therefore I don’t want to spend the money to invest in higher education.
I don’t see like the ROI just becomes much more difficult based on the economy. So, you know, how much of it is higher ed in and of itself versus some of these other issues impacting, you know, the opportunity and the return on investment that I might be getting from higher ed. like, how do we parse this out? How do you think about is it higher ed in and of itself? Is higher ed just kind of a product of other issues, other levels of confidence dropping that type of thing?
Courtney Brown (04:20.491)
Yeah, it’s a really good question because this is a trend for over 10 years. So, you know, the economy has done lots of different things over the 10 years. We had a pandemic over the last 10 years. We’ve had, you know, both parties represented in the presidency. So a lot of stuff has happened in the last 10 years. But we have seen this decline, you know, to be fair to higher ed, Gallup, as I had mentioned, measures all of these different institutions and everyone is declining. So it’s not just higher.
Matt Sterenberg (04:27.96)
That’s true. Yeah.
Courtney Brown (04:47.711)
And when we look at higher ed aligned with all those other things, it’s still pretty high. It’s definitely way ahead of Congress, which is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. But it is still pretty high, although we’re seeing this decline. One of the things we did last year, I was looking at these data that Gallup had, and I reached out to them and said, we should know why.
Why is confidence declining in higher ed? And this is where Lumina focuses our efforts are in education beyond high school. So I was particularly interested in that data point. So we partnered with them and said, can we take this deeper? Can we do some additional questions partnering together to figure out why? Why are people losing confidence? Or why do they have confidence? And it’s many of the things you just mentioned, Matt. When we ask them, there are three main reasons why people are losing confidence in higher education. And you touched on two of them pretty strongly.
affordability. We can all agree it is out of reach for far too many Americans. It is not affordable. and so people are questioning that they’re losing confidence because it’s not affordable. The second one again, as you mentioned, is that ROI piece. Is it aligned with the job market? You know, today people go to college because they want to get a job. They want to get something on the other end. It’s not just for the love of learning. Many, you know, few of us have that luxury to do that. Yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (06:05.698)
Because that’s an expensive love to your point. Like you better love learning. Yeah.
Courtney Brown (06:08.075)
Right. Love learning and have a big bank account to support you in that. So that is not the reality for most of us. We are going in order to get some credential that’s going to get us a better job, a good job, a better life in the future. So those are the two of the things. But the number one reason that people are losing confidence in higher ed is they are saying it’s become too political. They feel like they’re being indoctrinated.
And so those are the three reasons. Those two, affordability and the ROI, we could probably all guess that that political agenda piece is really interesting. And I think that reflects the narrative that we’re hearing. When you pick up a newspaper or you hear politicians speaking, they’re constantly questioning or people are becoming under fire for this political piece in higher education.
Matt Sterenberg (07:04.492)
You know, and when you think about it, almost if you pulled the average American, this is completely from my brain, but if you pulled the average American, like, do you like politics? Do you like when things get political? I think the answer is no, you know? And so if they perceive that something is becoming political, they’re going to immediately have an aversion to it, right? And so whether it’s perception or whether it’s reality, I think that’s really hard to do.
to determine, right? Because how do you study that? Whether something is getting overtly political or whether indoctrination is happening. Those are really difficult things to prove or disprove. And it depends on your worldview, your own values. And so it becomes, I don’t envy higher ed because how do you combat it?
But the one thing I think would be interesting too, you brought up Congress, how the confidence in Congress is always historically quite low. But when they pull people, people like their Congress person, but they don’t like Congress in general. So I wonder if, confidence in higher ed is so low, but I like the institution in my backyard or the one that my son or daughter would go to. So, you you could also make the case that it isn’t the sky is falling type of mentality that
like I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, be like, I don’t like higher ed, but I like Grand Valley State University. I think they do a fantastic job. So yeah, what are your thoughts?
Courtney Brown (08:33.718)
Yeah.
You’re absolutely right. You know, it’s always them. I don’t trust them. I don’t like them. But I see what the college in my town is doing, and it’s doing good things. And I know people went there and they got good things out of it. And so I think you’re right. One of the other things to pull on here is we did some additional polling with students that asked them to rate their institution. Do you think your institution is too political? Do you feel like you have the ability to speak freely, that you’re respected? And interestingly enough,
Students said over and over again, yeah, I feel respected. I feel like I can speak my mind and others can speak their mind at my campus. That I feel like it’s a pretty safe space. I mean, not everybody, there’s absolutely much more room to grow. But when we asked them even, so that was in general, we asked them about their institution, they were much more positive. Yeah, my institution, it’s good. I feel very comfortable here. Overall, they felt pretty good, but at their institution, they definitely felt.
much more secure, much more ability to have this freedom of speech and it’s not too political and all of those things. So it’s interesting also, you know, it’s about my institution is better because we’re on the same team, but it’s also interesting to see the students experience and people that are really at college and what they’re experiencing is not what the media is telling us or the narratives we’re hearing from far too many people that are saying, oh yeah, it’s too political, people aren’t safe on campuses. So it’s just an interesting,
comparison here, the people experiencing something, saying one thing, and the people just viewing it from the outside with a whole different idea.
Matt Sterenberg (10:14.51)
And just to give some numbers from the Gallup poll, in general, overall, 59 % of parents want some college for their son or daughter. 48 % of Republicans, 73 % of Democrats, and 57 % of independents. And then for non-college, people that did not graduate from college, it’s 50%. And for college grads, it’s 75%, which the college versus non-college makes sense. You generally, I think,
think, well, I didn’t need college. I don’t think it’s a necessary path. Whereas if you went to college, like I had such a great time and it got to got me to where I was. And so I think that completely makes sense. But the concern I have with the partisanship of it is that it ends up having a negative feedback loop. So if you perceive that college is not valuable, and you have, let’s say, Republicans saying, we don’t think that college is valuable.
if less go, then it ends up having the nature of being true, right? We have less ideological and political diversity on campus. And so the thing that you are most scared of ends up actually happening because you don’t pursue higher ed. And then it becomes a place where only certain people are represented. that’s, and I don’t know the solution, but that’s my concern is that the fears end up
just piling on top of the reality that they’re creating.
Courtney Brown (11:45.013)
Yeah, perhaps. Let me make it a little bit more optimistic trying to do that. So, you know, one of the things we did with this confidence data, so we were finding out, you know, people are saying they’re not confident. And so then we shifted and we said, OK, are you the parent of somebody 18 or younger or do you have somebody in your life? Like, let’s speak to that. So first asking parents, we said, you know, so they say they don’t have confidence. And then we said, what do you hope your child
Matt Sterenberg (11:50.882)
Thank you. Thank you. Please do.
Courtney Brown (12:15.2)
your oldest child, what do hope for them? And overwhelmingly, regardless of party affiliation, people want their child to get education after high school. They see the value in that. They want them to get some sort of job training, a certification, a two-year degree, a four-year degree, something. You’re right, when we look at it by party lines, it’s a different makeup of those. where Democrats are much more likely to say, I want my kid to get a four-year education.
or two years, we have like 75 % of Democrats saying, I hope my child gets a two year or four year degree. But we still have about 50 % of Republicans saying, I want my child to get a two year or four year degree. And 75 % of them saying two year, four year degree or a certificate. So across the board, people see the value in getting education beyond high school, they know it’s going to open more doors. The issue is, you know, they want it, they value it.
We see people that we pull and see people that have no credential, have never touched higher ed and they overwhelmingly, they hope to go back and get a credential. So they want it, they value it, but they don’t trust the current system can deliver it. And that’s where the rubber meets the road is they want it, they know they need it or it’ll open up a better life, but it’s not affordable. It’s not accessible. They feel like it’s not for people like them. And then it gets to what you’re mentioning, Matt is,
So they just don’t try. They just say, okay, not for me. And they don’t touch the system. And that long-term isn’t good for them. It’s not good for our communities or our nation. And so how do we begin to flip that and how do we make sure that it can be more accessible for many more people in the US?
Matt Sterenberg (14:02.71)
I love that you brought that up. And I, I think it’s also reflective of some of the work that Lumen is doing, you know, so thinking about credentials more broadly than just degrees from a two year or a four year. And also, you know, I think we were pushing college so hard for a while that we lost sight of why college like, it’s, it’s ultimately because the data suggests that this is going to lead to the best opportunities.
if you enroll and graduate that that’s why, you know, and obviously the, benefits to a community and things like that. But it was because you looked at, you know, wages and, health and all these things like college. We pushed it hard because we, were making that, that correlation, but you know, it’s expensive. Like you highlighted all the massive costs of higher ed. so Lumina has even shifted a little bit to think differently about credentialing and
that college may not be for everybody. Can you share a little bit more about how, and the evolution of the shift from college degree to thinking more broadly about opportunities and credentialing for those individuals?
Courtney Brown (15:16.948)
Yeah, so Lumina in 2009 set a goal for the nation that by 2025, 60 % of Americans would have some form of education beyond high school quality education. And when we set that goal, it was only 38%. Only 38 % of Americans held a degree. We could only measure degrees at that point. But we always knew that certificates and certifications are important. You can get good jobs and have good life with a certificate or certification.
So over the years, we were able to count them and the nation is now at 55%. So 55 % of Americans have a quality certificate, certification or a degree. So that’s good. It’s good for those individuals and it’s good for our nation. And so that’s some of the work we’ve been doing. We’re now making sure that not only do you have that credential, because having that credential is important, but it’s gotta be a valuable credential. It actually has to lead.
to economic prosperity. has to lead to more than you would make with a high school degree alone. you we’ve evolved in making sure that you’re getting that credential, whatever it is, but it is quality. It is leading to a better life to address some of those ROI concerns, to address that work workforce concern, you know, and at the same time, we have to, we’ve got to figure this affordability piece out because
You could make a lot more over a high school degree alone, but if you owe thousands of thousands of dollars, you’re not prosperous. It’s not setting you up for a good life. So those are things that we have to continue to work on addressing.
Matt Sterenberg (16:49.614)
The affordability piece, I am really glad that we are not gonna try to tackle that in this podcast. Over the next 10 minutes, we’re gonna solve the college affordability crisis. Yeah, I think it’s, and then the short-term credential piece or the, whether it’s a short-term or a long-term certificate, whatever it may be, like there’s tons of…
Courtney Brown (16:56.748)
Ha
Matt Sterenberg (17:17.58)
great work going on to actually measure the value of these credentials. We’re going to have some episodes coming out with the Burning Glass Institute, their credential value index. We’ve talked with journalist Paul Fain in recent episodes on just measuring, how do we think about these workforce credentials? And then obviously short-term Pell workforce Pell being passed. And there’s teeth in that legislation that suggests like you have to
prove the value of this credential if it’s gonna receive federal funding. How do we get the feedback loop right? Like how do we better communicate the value of these early on? As students are making decisions in high school, that’s so early, what work are you doing or how have you seen this work happen where it’s like, obviously this is all very new, but how can we really communicate the fields?
that are worthy of going into and that are going to create economic prosperity.
Courtney Brown (18:19.169)
You know, I think that’s a really important question and we don’t have it right yet. You know, we have to make sure that we’re not tracking people. not putting people like, well, you’re only worthy of getting a certification, so I’m to put you on this track. But you’re going to get a PhD, so we’re going to put you on this track. We need to make sure that this system
Matt Sterenberg (18:37.176)
But that work has been, that was like the silver bullet for a while. I feel like states were saying like, as a sophomore, you need to pick if you’re on a college track, career track or military. Like, and I remember thinking this is really well intended, but that’s a, when you’re 15 years old, isn’t that kind of silly?
Courtney Brown (18:58.167)
Well, it is hard. there are many, many countries around the world who have done that and done it little bit more successfully. What we have to do, though, is make sure there’s always a pathway from one to the other. So nobody should fall into a path where they can’t move across, build on what they know, and build that into a degree if they want to get a degree. A lot of the value in these short-term credentials, these certificates and certifications, are actually on top of a degree. So the pathway is not linear.
You need to make sure you’re getting the skills and knowledge along the way that are going to fulfill your career. The way I think about it is we need to have a much more transparent system. We need to go in as informed consumers. If you think about all the information we have nowadays, I want to get a new pair of headphones. I can do research and find out how long those are going to last, how much they cost, what thousands of people say about them.
Higher Ed isn’t that clear. We’re investing a lot more money in higher ed. And I try to go on Amazon and look up, like, I want to get this degree at this university. And it’s hard for me to figure out what it’s going to cost. It’s going to cost me something different than it’s probably going to cost you. How long it’s going to take me. And then how long that credential is going to last. Last me. What are my opportunities? So how do we create a much more transparent system so when somebody is considering what they want to do, they understand, I could actually
get a certificate and it’s going to pay off better than me getting this associate degree over here. And I think if we have a much more transparent system that will help consumers. It’ll help somebody in high school. Maybe it’s hard. As you mentioned, it’s hard in high school at 16 to go, you know what I want to do? Are you doing what you thought you were going to be doing at 16? Because I’m not.
Matt Sterenberg (20:51.63)
I had no, I don’t know what I want to do now. So I have no idea. They didn’t even have podcasts in high school, it is a funny thing too. And I like that you brought up the, you know, the on ramps and off ramps too of like, you know, do you want to get a degree first, then pursue a certificate or you pursue a certificate and then you go back to school. Like, I think we often want to do the A to B transaction of like, how does this get me
Courtney Brown (20:54.861)
now
Matt Sterenberg (21:19.842)
this job and what is the wage gain or how much is that salary? And it’s like, well, when you’re 24 years old and you just graduated from college, what you need to make is different than what you’re going to want to make when you’re 40 and you maybe have four kids, right? So you have different standards at different levels. Like physically, you might be more willing to do manual labor when you’re younger.
right? And then you get older and you’re like, you know, I actually want to manage people or I want to start my own business. Like, I think we have to think more about the complete map and how things connect to each other to your point. Because I think and even colleges have this like, how do get our students employed? And it’s like, yes, I think we need to care about that because it’s so expensive. But at the same point,
College is so expensive that we shouldn’t just think about their first job out of college. It should be a more holistic view of how do we set them up for what they could do 10 years after they graduate.
Courtney Brown (22:21.417)
Absolutely. And I think some of those more durable skills help a student navigate some of those or help a person navigate some of that, you know, changes in the market, changes in technology, all of those things. And I think the other thing is we also have to recognize who today’s college students are. So we’ve talked a lot about high school students, but the reality is that a third of today’s students are over 25. So these aren’t, you know, 16 year old kids.
80 % of today’s college students work. 44 % of those, almost half of college students are working full time. Most, half of them are financially independent from their parents. They have their own dependents. So when we think about college students, we also have to rethink who they are. They’re not college kids. And so they’re also navigating these different things about, as you said, like now I maybe didn’t have a college degree.
but I want to go into management now. And so now at 37, I’m going to get into that program, which brings up a whole host of other concerns about college and trying to navigate it at a different age when it’s a system really set up for a much younger age.
Matt Sterenberg (23:38.393)
Courtney, I’m glad that you brought a positive perspective to this. And I think for everybody, it’s important to know this data. I think it speaks to like, OK, what is the perception, especially if you’re in higher ed? Like, it’s important to think about. And they have enrollment targets. Like, how do we speak to people about college? How do they perceive college? I think it’s really important. And obviously, the ROI piece is this big challenge.
Is there anything else that you want to leave us with or anything that you’re working on that you want to highlight before we wrap up today’s conversation?
Courtney Brown (24:14.487)
You know, I think it’s important to continue to listen to people. So as you mentioned a bit ago, we could yell from the mountaintop all day long that a college degree will pay off. You’ll make more over your lifetime. You’ll be healthier. You’ll be more civically minded. You’ll do, you know, a thousand things. But that’s not the reality that far too many Americans are facing. They are concerned about costs. They are concerned about getting a good job and having some stability in their lives. So we have to listen.
And not just listen and say, hear you, but I hear you and we’re going to change to better serve you. And I think in doing that, you know, we, that we do begin to change the narrative. We do begin to change the trajectory for millions of Americans.
Matt Sterenberg (24:59.64)
Courtney, thanks so much for joining me.
Courtney Brown (25:01.623)
Thank you.
