Colleges & universities

NY Times - American colleges and universities bear significant responsibility for plunging public trust in higher education, a Yale University committee suggested in a report released on Wednesday.

High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.

“Trust is earned by doing what you say you’re going to do — and, ideally, doing it well,” the committee wrote, describing “widespread uncertainty about the fundamental purpose and mission of higher education.”

Universities have faced pressure to help address societal problems, the committee noted, saying they were “expected to be all things to all people: selective but inclusive, affordable but luxurious, meritocratic but equitable.”

But, the professors added, “without a clear mission and purpose, it becomes difficult to judge whether colleges and universities are living up to their fundamental commitments.”

Most American schools are far removed from places like Yale, where the estimated annual cost of attendance for undergraduates exceeds $90,000 before financial aid. Administrators at many institutions, most of which cost far less and admit far more students, complain that their schools are unfairly tied to selective universities.

But those broad perceptions are driving debates about academic offerings, taxpayer support for universities, and President Trump’s attacks on a higher education system that predates the nation itself.

Friction around colleges is not new. The committee, though, pointed to a congruence of contemporary practices to help explain why academia’s standing has declined so far, so fast. Gallup reported last September that 35 percent of Americans regarded a college education as “very important” — half the number who thought that in 2013.