2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10: Restoring Trust

“The 2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10 describes how higher education technology and data leaders and professionals can help restore trust in the sector by building competent and caring institutions and, through radical collaboration, leverage the fulcrum of leadership to maintain balance between the two.

“It is well documented that the public is losing faith in all institutions, including those in higher ed. We are in the middle of what I would describe as a concerted—though sometimes thoughtful—challenge to the purpose and value of higher education. This reality is a key contributor driving how we approach and communicate about the work we do.”

—Charles Isbell, Provost, University of Wisconsin Madison

Higher education has a trust problem. It’s been building for a while now. Trust in postsecondary education varies by country and seems associated with a corresponding decline in trust of “elites” and a rise in support for authoritarian leaders.^Footnote1 For example, a June 2024 Gallup poll revealed that in the past ten years, the share of Americans who are confident in higher education has dropped by 21 percentage points, from 57 percent to 36 percent. In 2024, almost as many Americans have little or no confidence in higher education (32 percent) as those who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence (36 percent).^Footnote2 The three biggest reasons survey respondents gave for their lack of confidence in higher education are poor quality or irrelevant educational content (46 percent), politicized agendas (41 percent), and cost (28 percent).” ~ courtesy of EDUCAUSE

Read more at EDUCAUSE.