Television host Mike Rowe warned that Americans no longer have confidence in higher education and that four-year college degrees are now seen as “shameful” by many.
Discussing the optics problem four-year institutions are having and the impact the public relations nightmare is causing for education, Rowe told Fox Business that the “bottom is falling out of the perception market for a four-year degree.”
“Back in the mid-’60s, higher-ed needed a PR campaign, a good one, and it got one. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of every other form of education. And then we wound up with a skills gap and no shop class and so forth and so on,” the “Dirty Jobs” star told Fox Business on Wednesday.
“I think something really extraordinary happened during the lockdowns,” he told “Bottom Line” co-hosts Sean Duffy and Dagen McDowell.
“Everybody’s getting a trophy” as well as a great grade, the CEO of Mike Rowe Works Foundation, claimed.
“If I’m an employer hiring a Harvard grad, I honestly have no idea who I’m hiring. It could be a disciplined, hardworking, smart, industrious, self-starter. Or it could be the son of the son of a legacy who coasted through the whole thing,” Rowe contended.
He expressed uncertainty about the shift and worried about a PR problem “unfolding for the credential that we know as a four-year degree.”
According to Fox Business:
In 2023, Gallup released a poll finding that just 17% of Americans say they have “a great deal” of confidence in their universities, with 19% saying they had “quite a lot.” Meanwhile, 40% said they only had “some” confidence, and 22% said they had “very little.”
In the analysis that followed former President Donald Trump’s New Hampshire primary victory, NBC News noted the role of those without college degrees in the voting.
“In the Trump years, the GOP has found success among non-college-educated voters, and Trump handily won that group Tuesday night. Voters without college degrees were a majority of the electorate (52%),” the report noted of exit polls. “Among voters without college degrees, Trump won 67%, while only 31% voted for Haley. Trump’s performance among those voters was also up 245 percentage points compared to 2016, when he won 42% of them.”
“Ten years ago, if you said, ‘Hey, I’ve got the support of the college-educated behind me,’ I think the average person would immediately go, ‘Okay, so the smart people are with you’ — but something’s happened,” Rowe told the Fox Business hosts.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what it means to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got the support of the college-educated,’ because I can’t find any evidence to indicate that that means you have the support of wise, prudent, thoughtful people,” he said.
Rowe, who graduated from Towson University in Maryland in 1985, noted recent scandals that have plagued Ivy League schools and the effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns on in-person classes amid sky-high tuition costs.
“Donations are drying up. Graduates are taking their degrees off their wall because they no longer resonate with pride. They’re shameful,” he said.
“So, the worm is turning, guys,” he added.
“And frankly, I think education is too important to root against it. I want it back, I want it great,” he concluded. But I’m afraid it may have to go splat before we get there.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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