Along with thousands of student protesters in California and Washington, a new poll shows that many Americans are suspicious of what protesters called the ‘privatization’ of public universities in the United States.

According to the survey by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, six out of ten Americans think that public universities operate with more concern for their bottom line than for students or the quality of their education. This number has gone up five percent in the last year alone.

Public Agenda, a non-partisan non-profit that collaborated on the survey, wrote, “these findings suggests that many Americans are becoming more skeptical about whether colleges and universities are doing all that they can to control costs and keep tuition affordable.’

Affordable tuition, one of the focal points of student protests last semester, was also a major concern for survey respondents. Eighty-three percent of respondents said that students have to borrow too much to pay for their education.

Another of student protestors’ major complaints was that public schools do not adequately prioritize low tuition and wide accessibility to a public education. Sixty-four percent of survey respondents echoed that concern, “even if that means colleges have less money to spend on operations and programs.”

Public Agenda cited a larger trend in the surveys that they have been administering since 1993. An increasing number of people believe that college is simultaneously becoming more necessary and less available.

These principles are continuing to motivate large-scale student protests. Students and faculty are  planning a National Day of Action to Defend Public Education on March 4th.


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