Americans are losing faith in higher education. Politics is part of the story, with Republicans far more concerned than Democrats about problems related to ideological bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education.
But regardless of those issues, our recent survey of American college and university students on how their college experience has influenced their views reveals that other challenges should unite Americans around the cause of improving higher education. In the first annual American College Student Freedom, Progress and Flourishing Survey, conducted by the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth at North Dakota State University, in collaboration with College Pulse, we asked 1,000 students at 71 four-year American colleges and universities about their experiences on campus regarding a wide range of issues. We found that many students, regardless of political ideology, do not appear to be learning about the state of human progress — or developing the type of mind-set needed to continue the cause of progress.
Only half of self-identified conservative and liberal students we surveyed say that, based on what they have learned in college, they think the world has been getting better over the last 50 years in terms of extreme poverty, life expectancy, hunger and literacy — in other words, as many as half do not think the world is getting better — while more than a third think it’s been getting worse. Yet all these things have improved significantly during this time. For example, extreme poverty has dropped from 43 percent of the world’s population in 1981 to around 9 percent today.
Continue reading at Inside Higher Ed.
Clay Routledge, PhD, is the Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute. As a leading expert in existential psychology, his work focuses on helping people reach their full potential and build meaningful lives. Follow his work @clayroutledge and subscribe to his newsletter, Flourishing Fridays.
John Bitzan is the director of the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth at North Dakota State University.
Culture of Flourishing
Americans are losing faith in higher education. Politics is part of the story, with Republicans far more concerned than Democrats about problems related to ideological bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education.
But regardless of those issues, our recent survey of American college and university students on how their college experience has influenced their views reveals that other challenges should unite Americans around the cause of improving higher education. In the first annual American College Student Freedom, Progress and Flourishing Survey, conducted by the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth at North Dakota State University, in collaboration with College Pulse, we asked 1,000 students at 71 four-year American colleges and universities about their experiences on campus regarding a wide range of issues. We found that many students, regardless of political ideology, do not appear to be learning about the state of human progress — or developing the type of mind-set needed to continue the cause of progress.
Only half of self-identified conservative and liberal students we surveyed say that, based on what they have learned in college, they think the world has been getting better over the last 50 years in terms of extreme poverty, life expectancy, hunger and literacy — in other words, as many as half do not think the world is getting better — while more than a third think it’s been getting worse. Yet all these things have improved significantly during this time. For example, extreme poverty has dropped from 43 percent of the world’s population in 1981 to around 9 percent today.
Continue reading at Inside Higher Ed.
Clay Routledge
Clay Routledge, PhD, is the Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute. As a leading expert in existential psychology, his work focuses on helping people reach their full potential and build meaningful lives. Follow his work @clayroutledge and subscribe to his newsletter, Flourishing Fridays.
John Bitzan
John Bitzan is the director of the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth at North Dakota State University.
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