The Education Message in These Election Results

Take this Degree and Shove It?

As a recovering political reporter, I spent Election Night hiding in my basement art studio, painting a still life and squinting every half hour to see Donald Trump rack up some more electoral votes on my laptop. Conventional political wisdom told us that a convicted felon, who allegedly incited violence rather than leave the White House quietly last time, could not be returned for four more years by an educated electorate. When I covered presidential politics as an ABC News reporter, back in the 80s and 90s, that would have been unthinkable.

The old, conventional wisdom made assumptions that voters vote in blocs, particularly by race, gender and income status. But this time around, most of those blocs veered decisively into Trump territory, so we have to look at some of the cross-currents for answers. I believe one key driver that helped push Trump support more broadly into the mainstream is the “diploma divide.” As Kellyanne Conway, a former longtime Trump strategist told several of us gathered two days after the election, “It might not have seemed like it was about education, but it was.”   

The diploma divide has been growing wider in each of the past three presidential elections, helping Donald Trump win twice now, and in 2020, come close.  This past week, Trump won the “Americans with no degrees” vote by 14 percentage points, according to exit polls. Are these less educated voters too uninformed or misinformed to see that with Trump’s victory comes a threat to democracy? No, I think not. Some of my own friends who voted for Trump say they resent the elitist policies which put college out of reach for many and they are sending a signal. Free Press blogger Evan Barker (a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump this year) describes Silicon Valley tech bros and Ivy League graduates as being out of touch about how hard it is to go to and get through college. Exit polls showed that group driving the message most was white men. Is it coincidence that this is the same demographic that is trending away from college?

Maybe some of the new college decliners could fund a four year degree (at an average cost of $36,000 per year) but choose not to? Has the four year degree become weaponized? Freshman enrollment was down 5% this fall, by early reports. (Although some of that is blamed on the forms for the new financial aid application system not being ready in time.)

How did we get here? I make the case in my new book “Who Needs College Anymore?” that those of us lucky enough to have four-year degrees, 38% of American adults, don’t really see what’s going on. We don’t see the pressure that is building. Perhaps we are the ones who are uninformed. Immigrants and lower-income, even middle-class voters hope that they can achieve the American Dream by attending college, or at least sending their kids. They’ve heard the mantra that, if you get through the gauntlet, you can earn $1.2 million more over your working lifetime with a college degree.

But we are making the college dream less affordable and less relevant while we send hopelessly confusing messages: “College isn’t worth it. BUT, you need a degree to get a “good” job.” And now, maybe a new message, “College is for liberals.” (I say maybe because in researching the book before this election year, I could not find evidence that college attendance was specifically dropping off in red states.) But, what was clear having conducted 150 interviews for the book with students, employers, colleges and high schools is that we are stressing out our families. I also saw through my work at the Sallie Mae Fund and the Education Design Lab.

 Over the past decade, college attendance has fallen significantly, despite a slight recovery now, after the pandemic. Three million fewer high school students are opting for college each year compared to the heyday, 2010. Many are still starting down the college path, but for nearly half of college triers, it doesn’t work out. Or they decide it’s not worth it. (Although it must be said that, for those who stay, college graduation rates are improving as colleges figure out how to support the new majority of learners.)

 When this stress from unaffordability or the degree’s value translates to the political arena, it becomes resentment. And resentment turns to ridicule. President Trump and other Republicans have turned this into a cat and mouse game since the 2020 election, attacking a small group of elite and state colleges, and dragging the reputation of the college degree along as collateral damage. Yet, in the heat of the general election, the idea of reimagining college made no headlines, despite its foundational role in shaping the electorate, the economy, and a voter’s personal path to economic success.  The debate, when higher education is discussed at all, is over antisemitism, DEI initiatives, transgender sports competitors, wedge topics intended to drive concerned voters away from college, not towards it. The Trump platform favors dismantling the Education Department, creating an “American Academy,” a free college, free of woke-ism. The Harris platform addressed college access by forgiving loans on the back end.

  We have bigger fish to fry.  We need to reform the federal financial aid system and the accreditation system which serve as the iron gates holding back a shift to “multiple pathways.” There are a growing number of post-high school pathways, apart from four year degrees, that lead to economic stability, even six figure salaries, but most of them are not visible to learners or their parents; they are underfunded, underdeveloped, under evaluated.  And not just trade school. There are many professional careers in tech, health care, manufacturing, business, to name a few, that no longer require degrees.  Surprisingly, many of these ideas find favor with Democrats and Republicans, maybe that’s why they languished in the fine print on campaign websites. Both campaigns support apprenticeships and removing degree requirements for federal jobs, for example.

President Trump says he wants to unify this time around. Here’s a topic that offers common ground: Elevating non-degree pathways and funding them inside and alongside colleges.  Apprenticeships, programs like Year Up, even boot camps. If we broaden the definition of “college,” to include more high-quality roads to professional careers, we can build a bridge across the diploma divide, not a wall around it.