The vast majority of Americans – both Republicans and Democrats – value higher education as a good investment, a pathway to economic mobility, and a ticket to better job security. But two-thirds of Americans believe higher education is in need of substantial changes, and they tend to agree on specific reforms involving the goals of higher education, insitutional accountability and admissions to elite colleges.
Those are just a few of the findings of New America’s just-released Varying Degrees 2019: New America’s Third Annual Survey on Higher Education, based on a nationally representative survey of 2,029 Americans ages 18 and older. The survey covered topics such as Americans’ perceptions of higher education, its contribution to economic mobility, how state and federal government should fund it and what changes to it are preferred.
The results are reported in the aggregate, and also broken out by political party affiliation, generation (Zs, Millennials, Xers, Baby Boomers and Silent Generation) and race. In contrast to other recent surveys showing big partisan divides in opinions about higher education, New America reports large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats believe that higher education offers: