Why Everyone Hates College
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/01/images/20010125-1.html
Edited by Morgan Pustilnik, Jordan Collinson, Owen Andrews, and Sarah Ahmad
In the summer of 2024, I attended Charlie Kirk’s speaking event at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. As was typical of his campus tours, an argumentative statement was emblazoned across most of the signs and t-shirts at the event. In this case: “College is a scam. Prove me wrong.” Despite Kirk’s elicitation of controversy, by the time he was making this national argument, it was shockingly uncontroversial.
Earlier this month, Gallup published polling showing just 35% of Americans consider a college education “very important.” That’s down from 70% in 2013. This decline wasn’t just driven by non-college graduates and political conservatives — the drop was steepest among people who had at least a bachelor’s degree. Beyond importance, Americans’ trust in institutions of higher education is at an all-time low, and nearly every elite institution has been ensnared in political controversy at some point in the past half-decade.
So why does everyone suddenly hate college so much? What happened from 2013 to 2023 that transformed university campuses from the land of opportunity to the land of “not very important”?
The Hype Beast
“You’ll be in college. That’s what we want.” - George W. Bush
One of the more memorable moments of George W. Bush’s presidency was his visit to a Milwaukee inner-city school in May 2002. He was there to promote the college-bound effects of what was supposed to be a signature piece of legislation: the No Child Left Behind Act. In hindsight, that visit seems more like an eerie prelude to the failures of government education policy.
In 2000, the inflation-adjusted budget for the Department of Education was $50 billion. That number jumped to $120 billion by 2005, and in 2024, Congress spent $270 billion on the department. The purpose of legislation like No Child Left Behind (and, a decade later, the Every Child Succeeds Act) was to increase the number of students who went to college under the premise that it would result in better economic outcomes. The sentiment behind education funding is broadly correct; college is still the best prescription for socioeconomic mobility, and degree holders earn an average of $24,000 more per year. The failure in the academic prescription was not in its intention — it was in its hype.
In 2000, the average tuition cost of attending a public university for 4 years was $14,000. That number is projected to be $41,360 in 2025. Total student loan debt tripled to nearly $2 trillion from 2003 to 2023, all while college enrollment has held steady since 2010. The education consensus took for granted what individual Americans never could: College is expensive.
As affording college got more difficult, so too did finding a job afterwards. The number of job openings for the most common areas of study has fallen rapidly, and 4-year college graduates now represent an equal share of the long-term unemployed as those who didn’t go to college at all. And, to rub salt in the wound, the suction of young workers into educated fields and away from blue-collar labor meant skilled trade workers could demand more; stories about plumbers and HVAC technicians making more than doctors and lawyers have gone viral.
Americans are acutely aware of all of this. Data from Pew Research shows just 22% of Americans think a college education is worth having to take out loans, compared to 47% who say it’s only worth it with no loans, and 29% who don’t see its worth at all. After years of high expectations, the mediocre reality of higher education left many with a sour taste in their mouth.
Too Woke, Too Weak, Too Broke
“Awake, but not woke.” - Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin
The economic flop of higher education explains some of the tide of public opinion, but not all. By now, the results are in, and college lost the culture war. Academia’s fall from cultural grace has been a slow drip since at least the 1950s, when conservatives started a fight that they appeared to be losing until very recently.
Campus protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War opened up the first major divides between universities and the nation at large. Though polling from the era is sparse, this limited information suggests that in the early 60s, between 60% and 70% of Americans expressed confidence in higher education. But by the mid-60s super-majorities of Americans disagreed with sit-ins and walk-outs as methods of activism, despite their frequent use on college campuses.
For decades, institutions of higher education have taken positions on social issues that are significantly further to the left than the average American. The increased polarization as a consequence of the culture wars thus explains the right’s declining trust in universities. But what about the nearly half of Democrats who say they don’t have confidence in higher education? When did the bastions of liberal education lose the liberals?
It’s difficult to overstate how inconsistent the campus Palestine protests of 2023 were with public opinion. When it came to Vietnam in the 60s or Black Lives Matter in 2014, universities could still count on the support of the American left. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is different. Liberals are divided over the war, and credible allegations of antisemitism ran contrary to the leftist ethos of protecting minorities. Polling from YouGov in the spring of 2024 found that less than half of Democrats supported the protests. An additional 47% of Democrats supported university crackdowns, with an additional 17% saying universities hadn’t gone far enough.
Higher education thus found itself in a double bind. Critics to the left were angry at the lack of divestment and campus crackdowns, while critics to the right saw institutions that were out of touch at best and discriminatory at worst.
Then came the Trump card. As universities bled support, the White House smelled blood. Elite institutions almost universally acquiesced to conservative demands. Columbia paid $200 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit, Brown paid $50 million, and UPenn $175 million — meanwhile, Harvard and Cornell are expected to lose billions. And that’s not to mention the dozens of university presidents that were forced to resign — including Jim Ryan of UVA. In the eyes of most of the nation, higher education was either too woke or too weak — and they’ve been deprived of the clout and funds to make a credible argument otherwise.
The Funeral
In 2025, it’s not clear exactly who college is for. Social mobility has been replaced with class exclusion, upstanding advocacy has been replaced with detached placation, and dominions of free thought have been brought to their knees by the frank realities of federal funding. Whether the future holds rebounding public approval or a diminished limelight, we don’t know — but it certainly feels like we’re heading for a funeral — not a comeback.