Earlier this month, Yale published the findings of a year-long faculty investigation into why Americans have lost faith in higher education. Ten tenured professors. Hundreds of consultations. Unanimous conclusions. That took institutional courage, and the rest of us in higher education owe Yale the respect of engaging with it honestly rather than treating it as someone else’s problem.
The numbers are stark. Public confidence in higher education has dropped from 57% to 36% in a decade. Yale’s cost of attendance is $94,425 against a median family income under $84,000. A quarter of federal student loan holders are in default. The committee singled out nursing, public health, and environmental science as fields where Yale graduates carry debt out of proportion to what they will earn. The diagnosis underneath: higher education has tried to be all things to all people, and the diffusion of purpose has cost it the public’s trust.
