Most Trustees Believe That Public Approves of Higher Ed

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Polling in recent years has revealed deep public skepticism about the purpose and value of higher education.

Just this year, the Pew Research Center found that more than 60 percent of those asked thought that higher education was headed in the wrong direction. For the past two years, polling by New America has found that only a quarter of those who responded said that higher education was fine the way it was.

But that’s not how many of the people on the governing boards of those institutions see it.

Seventy-seven percent of college trustees said that the public has a somewhat or mostly positive view of higher education, according to a new survey from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, together with Gallup.

Richard D. Legon, president of the association, said the difference between the public’s view and how trustees see it may have to do with their support for their own institutions. At the same time, he said, trustees generally realize that they have “some serious work to do to regain the public trust.”

To the extent that the public has a negative view of higher education, the survey found, trustees blamed negative media coverage and misperceptions. The top three issues “influencing the general public’s negative view of higher education” are media coverage of student debt, the price of tuition, and the perception that colleges are too liberal, according to the report, which included the responses of nearly 1,300 association members.

This year’s survey, the second such measure of trustee perceptions, shows that governing-board members are more aware of the public’s views than they were last year, said David W. Miles, chair of the association’s Board of Directors and a trustee of Drake University. Last year’s survey found that 84 percent of trustees believed the public viewed higher education positively.

The sense of negative media coverage only reflects the fact that most news stories focus on things that have gone wrong, he said.

“In the conversations that I have been a part of, there is not a sense that higher education is being maligned or mistreated by the media,” Miles said. What the association seeks to do is to get trustees to remind the public of the positive effects of higher education, but not to gloss over the problems.

Trustees’ own views of the challenges facing their institutions reflect, to some degree, the concerns of the public as well as the worries that administrators often express. Those include cuts in state or federal support, net tuition, the financial stability of the institutions, and declining enrollment.

The trustees who responded to the survey had greater concerns about higher education generally than they did about their own institutions. Fewer than half were somewhat or very concerned about the future of their own colleges over the next 10 years. Nearly 75 percent were concerned about higher education overall, the survey found.

“If you look at the issues, in this report board members have a healthy awareness of the challenges facing higher education,” Legon said.

The trustees who responded come from all sectors of higher education, although more than two-thirds of them are at private nonprofit colleges. Just 19 percent represent public colleges, and 15 percent are from private, for-profit institutions. Sixty percent of those who responded are white, and nearly 90 percent are male.

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.