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Colleges are failing our country. This seems to be a consensus among a growing number of Americans and business leaders.
A recent Gallup/Lumina Foundation report found that an increasing number of Americans have little or no confidence in higher education. For the first time since Gallup began measuring confidence in higher education, Americans are “almost evenly split between those who have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence (36%), some confidence (32%), and little or no confidence (32%).”
The survey results mark a significant change from 2015, when nearly 60% of Americans had high levels of confidence and 10% had little or no confidence.
Americans are “about evenly split between those who currently have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in higher education (36%), some confidence (32%), and little or no confidence (32%).” (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Many business leaders are similarly reflecting a growing lack of confidence: In a recent interview, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon criticized colleges for putting too little emphasis on helping graduates land good jobs.
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Dimon argues that this reluctance not only puts undue pressure on companies to train their employees (something that pre-employment education should be doing), but also disenfranchises large segments of society.
Kirsten Barnett, executive director of the New York Jobs CEO Council, an organization made up of the 30 top U.S. CEOs and their companies, was more blunt than Dimon: “When you think about what it takes to do a job, it’s skills. It’s not degrees.”
The reasons for America’s growing suspicion of universities are rooted in too many causes to detail here, but it’s worth noting that the distrust is tied to certain factors — most notably, what universities do and don’t teach.
According to a Gallup report, of those Americans who said they had little or no trust, about 40 percent criticized colleges for “not teaching relevant skills, not giving much meaning to a college degree, and not letting graduates get jobs.”
Conservative college students say liberal prejudice has intensified, forcing them to hide their beliefs. “I can’t speak freely.”
In fact, a new survey released this week by the Cengage Group found that 55% of recent graduates said their degree programs did not prepare them for the job market, and 70% said basic AI training should be taught instead — essentially the same concerns as those shared by business leaders like Dimon and Barnett.
But the Gallup report goes a step further: Just over 40% of this group of Americans with low or no trust also believe that the nation’s colleges “promote a particular political agenda.” In other words, many believe that higher education is miseducating students: Rather than preparing them for careers and productive lives, colleges appear to be preparing them to be radical activists.
Moreover, students’ miseducation about paid employment, or “good jobs,” is a serious problem because it deprives them of the opportunity to become more fulfilled human beings. Work and pay are essential to humanity. But good jobs and adequate pay are even more important to the flourishing of humanity and, ultimately, of society.
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Higher education has many laudable goals, but its primary focus must be on preparing students for good jobs and good pay. To do anything less would be to do a great injustice to students and to our future.
The injustice is compounded and the damage even more devastating when students are miseducated to become radical activists. Students are deceived into believing that radical activism will add value to their lives and society, when in fact the opposite is true. Such activism denies students the opportunity to reach their full productive potential, to the detriment of not only themselves but society as a whole.
For universities to regain public and business trust in what they do, they must commit to preparing students for meaningful jobs and careers, and this starts with implementing industry-ready, skills-based educational outcomes in the general education curriculum and all majors.
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Universities should make internships and apprenticeships mandatory to not only create employment opportunities but also hone soft skills and industry-specific skills. Universities should also require all faculties to enter into partnerships with industries and companies to continuously improve their curricula and prepare students for the market.
While further market-related improvements could be implemented, there is no doubt that the initiatives outlined above will go a long way in re-increasing trust in higher education.
Our focus on job and market readiness must also consider and integrate the enduring questions and answers about what it means to be human, something that was once addressed by the humanities.
Today, much of the humanities is characterized by a turn to paradoxism and deconstructionism, which emphasizes moral ambiguity and skepticism. Such approaches have resulted in a generation of students who are at best sophisticated critics and at worst radical activists. These students are often unable to identify, affirm, or defend truth and what it means to be human.
Steven Pinker: Young people on campuses who are tired of being told, “Don’t say that, don’t think that.”
Students, as the recent protests have shown, clearly have no idea what’s right or wrong, and neither do some university presidents.
Universities must develop and implement moral skills instructional outcomes in the general education curriculum and in all majors that foster moral skills. all Help students discern and affirm truth, beauty, and goodness.
All students must also complete a significant service requirement each year of college as a prerequisite for graduation. This service requirement is linked to moral skill outcomes and allows students to apply and hone their moral reasoning and judgment in preparation for life after college.
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Our universities must equip students with the industrial skills to make great contributions in the marketplace, and this education must also include the moral skills to enable students to live great lives characterized by truth, beauty, and goodness.
Hard work and integrity are essential to both students and the future of our nation, and a commitment to them would go a long way to restoring confidence in American universities.
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