The crisis of confidence in higher education will not end with the student protests 

Another day, another no-confidence vote for a university president.  

On Thursday the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University approved a no-confidence resolution of the school’s president, Nemat Shafik. It did so after concluding that her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and her public pledge to a congressional committee to discipline several faculty members who had espoused similar views “violated the “fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance” and engaged in an “unprecedented assault on student’s rights.” 

But Shanfik is not the only university leader who has lost the confidence of significant constituencies on their campuses. On April 30, the faculty of Barnard College voted no confidence in that college’s president, Laura Rosenbury, because of the school’s response to a pro-Palestinian encampment, making it “the first no-confidence vote against a president in the college’s history.”  

Last month, New York University’s Gallatin School passed a motion of no-confidence in NYU’s president, Linda Mills, after police arrested students and faculty at another pro-Palestinian encampment. On May 9, faculty in Emory University’s College of Arts and Sciences voted “no confidence” in President Greg Fenves for the way he handled student protests over the war in Gaza. 

But as the academic year ends, and with it the season of campus protests, the broader crisis of confidence in higher education will not end. Colleges and universities, especially those branded “elite,” will have to work hard to win back the goodwill of many Americans who no longer trust them.  

Evidence of that loss of trust is plentiful. 

In 2019, a Pew survey found what it described as “an undercurrent of dissatisfaction – even suspicion – among the public about the role colleges play in society, the way admissions decisions are made, and the extent to which free speech is constrained on college campuses.” 

Pew noted that when asked whether the American higher education system is generally going in the right or wrong direction, most Americans (61 percent) said it’s going in the wrong direction.  

Views of higher education in the Pew survey broke down on partisan lines: “Democrats who see problems with the higher education system cite rising costs more often than other factors as a major reason for their concern.” In contrast, “Roughly eight-in-ten Republicans (79%) say professors bringing their political and social views into the classroom is a major reason why the higher education system is headed in the wrong direction (only 17% of Democrats say the same).” 

In July 2023, Gallup reported that “Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).” Gallup notes 17 percent of U.S. adults have “a great deal” and 19 percent have “quite a lot” of confidence, while 40 percent have “some” and 22 percent have “very little” confidence. 

Like the Pew survey, Gallup found that Republicans and Democrats think about higher education in different ways, with only 19 percent of self-identified Republicans expressing confidence in higher education. But other groups also register a lack of confidence; only 29 percent of people without college degrees and 31 percent of older Americans said they had confidence in what colleges and universities are doing.   

Finally, a September 2023 Chronicle of Higher Education survey found that “Most people, whether they have a four-year degree or not, would advise others to pursue one, our poll found. Yet many don’t think institutions do a great job educating their students — or that they are of great benefit to graduates.” 

The Chronicle observes that “Alternatives like trade school strike many Americans as just as good a path to a successful livelihood. And colleges’ value to communities and to society also draws skepticism.” 

Even college graduates aren’t convinced that colleges and universities are doing a good job. “Just 40 percent said colleges are excellent or very good at educating students, and nearly 20 percent said they were not so good or poor on that measure.” 

All of these surveys were taken long before what has unfolded on many college campuses since the October 7 terror attack on Israel.  

None of those polls should detract us from recognizing the many good things that go on every day in American higher education. Among them are the dedication to students shown by faculty and staff, the willingness of students to take on even the most daunting intellectual challenges, and the important research that college and university faculty do in the service of the public good.   

But if colleges and universities are to address the no-confidence vote being registered by Americans, they will have to do work on several fronts. Let me name just a few. 

First, they need to do something about the escalating cost of higher education and the increasingly uncertain return on that investment. Today, as journalist Paul Tough says, “Higher education no longer resembles a safe, reliable blue-chip investment, like buying a Treasury bill. It’s now more like going to a casino. It’s a gamble that can still sometimes produce a big windfall, but it can also bring financial disaster.”  

The growth of artificial intelligence will only compound the gamble for future college graduates. 

Second, part of the work colleges and universities need to do is to restore the priority they give to their educational mission. Colleges and universities have suffered from mission creep; today it often seems that the work of education is just one among many things that colleges and universities are trying to do.  

As they work to recenter their educational mission, colleges and universities will also have to take steps, as one commentator suggests, “to disengage from the commotion of constant political statement-making” and stop taking stands on every political issue that commands attention in this country and abroad. Taking such stands not only undermines “an institution of higher learning’s pursuit of free inquiry, but it also constantly opens the academy to external criticism. Why make a statement regarding the war in Ukraine, for example, and not one on the recently resolved Ethiopian civil war?” 

Williams College President Maude Mandel took a step in the right direction last October when she wrote, “I do not believe it is the president’s job to speak for the whole community, or even that it is possible to do so. In those moments, my job is to help ensure that the educational opportunities and personal support are in place so that we can reflect, study, and decide what we think and believe, individually and collectively.” 

Finally, nowhere has confusion about the meaning and limits of free expression been as great as it is on today’s college campuses. As the controversy around this year’s campus protests has shown, faculty, staff and college leaders need to be clear about the difference between academic freedom and free expression — and the limits of both.  

So even as student protesters take down their encampments and go home for the summer, colleges and universities are left with much work to do if they are to regain the public’s trust in higher education. I am confident they are up to the task. 

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College.