Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published on the National Association of Scholars on April 21, 2026. It is crossposted here with permission.

On April 10, a 10-member Yale committee released a yearlong study on declining trust in higher education. In a surprising twist, the committee pointed the finger at the very things education reformers have been pointing out for years as the major problems plaguing higher education. But more on that later.

While Yale escaped the worst of the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education last year—unlike Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and others—the university’s internal report came at the direction of Yale’s President Maurie McInnis to understand why public sentiment toward higher education had changed so drastically. In a time when public confidence in higher education sits at a low of 36 percent as of 2024—compared to 57 percent a decade ago—the committee finally acknowledges some truths that education reformers, such as the National Association of Scholars (NAS), have been warning colleges and universities about for decades. Perhaps institutions are finally becoming self-aware.

At its core, the report lauded higher education’s history and purpose, as colleges and universities play a distinct role in democratic society. The report went on to say that while higher education maintains a certain distance from society to produce the best research and teaching for public benefit, it must also,

serve the needs of faculty, administrators, and students, but also those of the public at large. The nation’s colleges and universities cannot succeed without a widely shared belief in the value of the education they provide and the legitimacy of the knowledge they create. A healthy campus culture requires good-faith engagement with public concerns, and curiosity rather than disdain in the face of criticism.

But the report held no punches when it came to calling out what has perpetrated public distrust: institutions themselves. 

In searching for the answer as to why public trust is rapidly declining in higher education, the report committee concluded on three overarching reasons how institutions have contributed to the problem. Problem one, the skyrocketing cost of a college education coupled with the perception that a college degree is no longer worth the money. Problem two, the admissions system and the question of “who gets in and why.” Problem three, ideological influences in the classroom and on campuses at large, plus issues of free speech, political bias, and self-censorship. The committee also noted that there are “concerns that grade inflation, new technologies, and bureaucratic expansion have undermined the university’s academic mission.”

Rising tuition rates have been a plague on higher education for many years. While schools will offer generous scholarship packages to dilute the cost of attending—the report calls it the “high tuition-aid model”—it has eroded public trust in institutions as “the system is complicated, unpredictable, secretive, and highly variable.” According to the report, Yale is one of the most expensive schools in the country. In 1993-94, tuition was $18,630 or about $42,000 in today’s dollars. The 2025-26 tuition rate is $69,900, but the committee estimates the full cost of attendance to be $94,425, including travel. This is more than the median income a family of four makes in a year. However, the committee does note that Yale subsidizes the cost of attendance for low-income and middle-class students because of the high tuition-aid model—although one wonders if Yale is just shifting the burden onto students who pay the full rate, or better yet, American taxpayers? Also interestingly, Yale announced in January of this year that the tuition fee will be waived for undergraduate students whose families make less than $200,000 a year—a move that Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and others have already made.

(Our 2021 report Priced Out was ahead of its time as it details how the cost of a college education has more than doubled over recent years, leaving students with crippling debt and questions of why tuition is so expensive. The 50 colleges and universities surveyed—including Yale—often continued to add to their bloated administrative departments and rely upon government funds while raising tuition rates for students.)

On the second point, the current holistic admissions process employed by Yale University was found to be too opaque, leaving students with more questions than answers when it comes to why some students are admitted and others are not. By the committee’s own admission, 

[T]he holistic admissions process, however adeptly designed and applied, is subjective and hard to explain. The available evidence also suggests that it disproportionately benefits wealthy applicants. One widely cited paper finds that, conditional on SAT/ACT scores, applicants from families in the top 1 percent of the income distribution are substantially more likely to be admitted to highly selective private colleges than are middle- or upper-middle-income applicants with similar academic credentials.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that race cannot be used as a factor in admissions decisions, a major blow to the holistic admissions model. Yale currently has no minimum threshold of academic preparation for admission and the website itself states that applicants are “evaluated in a holistic, whole-person manner.” The committee called out the current admissions process in the report, noting that “the absence of any clear academic standard is difficult to reconcile with a mission built on academic excellence.”

In addressing matters of free speech, self-censorship, politics, and intellectual pluralism, the committee acknowledges the pressures toward conformity, intimidation, and social shaming have been felt at Yale. However, the committee reaffirms the 1974 Woodward Report as a major contributor to the university’s ability to navigate controversy over the years. The Woodward Report is “meant to protect all forms of speech, not just those favored at a particular political moment.” The challenge of protecting academic freedom and freedom of speech, says the committee, requires long-term education and commitment. So while Yale apparently began addressing these challenges in 2024 through the adoption of an “institutional voice” policy and later establishment of a faculty committee on academic freedom and introduction of civil dialogue training as part of first-year orientation, this is a long-term project.

So, what’s the takeaway?

Ultimately, the Yale committee concluded with 20 recommendations for the university to implement. Notable recommendations are for the university to refocus its mission, cut tuition rates and reform the admissions process, improve upon and deliver educational value, and wrangle runaway grade inflation. If acted upon, the committee’s findings and recommendations would be a great starting place to strengthen Yale’s standing in the public eye. It could also put the university in a unique position to lead the other Ivies toward rebuilding the public trust in higher education. 

Whether this report is merely lip service or a harbinger of change is up to Yale. But it is encouraging that the committee was candid about the state of higher education, and that academia needs to take responsibility for its current situation. In other words, academia “must be willing to admit where we have been wrong and where we might improve, even as we defend what is essential about higher education and its academic mission.” 

Self-awareness is a good look for higher education.