Episode 111: Courtney Brown on Perception vs. Reality on the Value of Higher Ed
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How wide is the gap between what the media says about the value of a degree and what students are actually experiencing? In this episode, Elliot talks through this with Courtney Brown, Vice President of Strategic Impact at the Lumina Foundation, to deconstruct their recent "Reality Check" research conducted with Gallup. By comparing hard data against public perception for three pillars of the student experience – belonging, career readiness, and affordability – we explore how institutions better communicate value and increase actual value through high-impact strategies like work-integrated learning.
In recent years, the national conversation around higher education has taken a skeptical turn. Headlines often suggest that college is no longer worth the investment, citing rising costs and a perceived lack of workforce readiness. However, when you look past the noise and examine the data, a much more nuanced—and optimistic—story emerges.
Courtney Brown, Vice President of Strategic Impact at the Lumina Foundation, recently shared insights from the Foundation’s "College Reality Check" report. The research highlights a significant "perception gap": while the general public’s confidence in higher education is wavering, current students and alumni report high levels of satisfaction, a strong sense of belonging, and a clear path to career success.
To restore public trust and ensure long-term student success, institutions must focus on three foundational pillars: belonging, career readiness, and affordability. By leaning into transparency and aligning academic outcomes with economic prosperity, colleges can turn the "perception vs. reality" debate into a proven value proposition.
Defining Student Success: Beyond the Credential
At its core, student success has traditionally been measured by enrollment numbers or graduation rates. But as Courtney Brown points out, a degree is only as valuable as the life it enables. The Lumina Foundation defines success through the lens of economic prosperity. It’s not just about the piece of paper; it’s about a "credential of value" that leads to a good job and a good life.
Lumina has set an ambitious national goal: by 2040, 75% of Americans in the labor force should hold a degree or credential that leads to economic prosperity. Currently, that number stands at 43.6%. While attainment rates have climbed significantly since 2009, the focus is now shifting toward "realignment" with the labor force. This means ensuring that associate degrees and short-term certificates provide the same economic premium that bachelor's degrees historically offer.
The Public Confidence Crisis: Perception vs. Reality
One of the most jarring findings in recent research is the decline in public confidence. Ten years ago, two-thirds of Americans had a great deal of confidence in higher education; today, that number has dropped to roughly one-third. According to the Gallup-Lumina data, the three main drivers of this decline are:
Politics: A belief that campuses are too politically charged.
Skill Alignment: Doubts about whether students are learning what they need for the job market.
Cost: The looming shadow of tuition and student debt.
However, the "Reality Check" comes from the students themselves. Despite the media narrative of "political indoctrination," 70% of students feel free to share their opinions on campus, and the vast majority say their professors encourage open dialogue. This held true across Democratic, Republican, and Independent students alike.
The Three Pillars of the Connected College
To close the gap between what the public hears and what students experience, institutions need to double down on three specific areas.
1. Cultivating a Sense of Belonging
Belonging is a primary driver of retention. Students need to see people who look like them and experience lives similar to theirs. This is especially true for "today’s students"—adult learners, parents, and workers who don't fit the traditional 18-year-old mold. Creating "bonding spaces" (like veteran centers or adult learner commons) allows students to find their community, which then gives them the confidence to "bridge" and engage with people who are different from them.
2. Integrating Career Readiness from Day One
The data shows that 90% of current students feel they are learning career-ready skills. However, institutions can do more to help students articulate those skills to employers. This involves moving career services from an "afterthought" in senior year to a core part of the freshman experience. Strategies like work-integrated learning, internships, and guest lectures from industry professionals help students see the immediate application of their "durable skills"—the critical thinking and communication abilities that employers crave but cannot easily teach.
3. Radical Transparency in Affordability
While the net price of college has actually stabilized or decreased in some sectors, the "sticker shock" remains a massive barrier. For many families, a few thousand dollars is the difference between tuition and putting food on the table. Colleges must move toward a "mortgage-style" transparency—clear, predictable pricing that doesn't change every semester. When students understand the true cost and the eventual ROI, the investment becomes a choice rather than a mystery.
Summary: A Path Forward
The value of higher education is not a myth, but the way we communicate that value needs an overhaul. By focusing on belonging, career-aligned skills, and transparent costs, colleges can rebuild the public’s trust. As the data shows, the student experience is still incredibly strong; it’s time for the national narrative to catch up to the campus reality.
Episode 111 Transcript
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Courtney Brown: So I would say when you put it all together, student success really comes down to the three things we talked about. Students need to feel like they belong, they need to develop skills that lead to meaningful careers, good jobs, and they need to access education they can actually afford. And I think when institutions focus on those three areas and they're really transparent about those and work on those areas, they strengthen both the value of higher education and the public's confidence in it.
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Elliot Felix: The foundation's done some great work trying to define and quantify great job. Great live and the role that credentials play in that. I'd love to hear a little bit more about what your research is telling you on these fronts.
Courtney Brown: So one of the things at Lumina Foundation is we set a goal for the nation, and that goal is that by 2040, 75% of Americans in the labor force will have a degree of credential that leads to economic prosperity. So every year we put out these data in our Stronger Nation report. Anybody can go look it up, stronger Nation, Lumina Foundation, look it up. You can go play with this tool. And it shows where the nation stands, toward that 75% goal. It shows where every state stands with that 75% goal, and then it just segregates by race, ethnicity, age, type of degree, all of those things. So we just set this goal. So we've set, we're at the baseline right now, and right now toward that 75% goal, about 43.6%. Of Americans in the labor force hold a degree or credential that leads to economic prosperity. So that's our starting line and we're working toward that 75% by 2040.
Elliot Felix: And what do you attribute the progress that we've made to, and what do you see as the, what do you see as the barriers to close that gap?
Courtney Brown: So one of the successes for this, for the last 15 years, we've been working toward increasing attainment. In 2009, about 38, 39% of Americans had a degree. And as of the most recent data, the 2024 data about 55% of Americans have a degree of credential. So we've done an incredible job of increasing attainment the United States. And so that's great that's why we're doing as well as we are, but we've gotta make sure that when people are getting those credentials, that they do lead to a good job. And so we're thinking about these are degrees and for the vast majority of bachelor's degrees. They have this economic premium, but only about 50% of associate degrees do. And only about 50% of certificates is short-term credentials do. So that's an area of realignment with the labor force to make sure that when somebody's gonna go get a credential, regardless of what it is, that it does provide that premium.
Elliot Felix: It just makes so much sense. 'cause it, it also tracks with the mindset shift from access to success, right? A access to education and attainment of credential are two great steps, but they're not enough if you're not getting the post grad outcomes. And so we're making gains in attainment. What do you think it's gonna take to keep closing that gap and get to 75%?
Courtney Brown: I think there are gonna be a few things. One of the things that we pay attention to a lot is we try to understand how people are experiencing higher education today. And so we partner with Gallup and every year we do a state of higher education study. So we pull current students we pull alumni, we post people who've never touched higher ed, and we pull people who have started college and, for whatever reason, stopped out. And one of the most interesting pieces of work from that partnership is a recent report called the College Reality Check. And what we found, it's really striking. So on one hand we see that public confidence in higher ed has declined over the past decade, but when you actually ask students about their experiences, you see something really different. They say that they are confident, they do believe in the value of their degree. We see alumni believe in the value of their degree. And so the big question really is why is this national narrative about higher ed so different from the real experiences of students themselves? And I think that's a really important consideration. We think about what is it gonna take to get us to that 75%? And part of it is understanding why this narrative is so different, and how do we really think about confidence. And what is a perception and where is some reality happening?
Elliot Felix: Yeah, it seems like there's a supply and demand part of the problem. My simplification of it, on the demand side, you have this public perception issue and that's driving or interfering with enrollment, right? We see something like 15% fewer 18 year olds enrolling and we've got 40 million plus with some college, no degree. So not re-enrolling. So that, that communication or that miscommunication is maybe inhibiting the kind of the demand. But then on the supply side, there are certain things that institutions could do to make sure those credentials are more valuable, is that a fair way of thinking about it?
Courtney Brown: Absolutely, I think there's some glimmers of truth on both ends, and so we have to figure out what's really going on. One of the things that we did Gallup does this poll about confidence in number of different institutions every year. Whether it's police, whether it's small businesses, whether it's Congress, Supreme Court, higher ed. You can imagine Supreme Court and Congress are at one end of confidence where small businesses are pretty high, higher ed is somewhere in the middle, probably closer to the top. People have confidence. But one of the things that was so striking to me last year is that I saw the number of people that have confidence in higher ed. This is the general public in the United States, go from about two thirds of Americans had a great deal of confidence in higher ed just 10 years ago. And as of last year, only about a third, just over a third, about 40% of Americans have a great deal of confidence in higher ed. That's a huge change. And worse, about a third of Americans have no confidence in higher ed. They have that going on. And so what we did when we partnered with Gallup, we said let's find out why. Why are people lacking confidence in higher ed? Because only if we start asking that question, can we begin to tackle the problem. And so there were three main reasons that jumped out. The number one reason that people are losing confidence in higher ed is they think it's too political. Which is striking. Really interesting. The second one is they're not sure that students are learning the right things, that they have the right skills for the job. And the third one is one, probably most people would name as the first, and it's the cost affordability.
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Elliot Felix: those are some things that the reality check research sheds new light on, right? Like it turns out for all the worries about political indoctrination, like most folks feel like there's open dialogue and they're encouraged to question and disagree. And so do you wanna shed more light on that for us?
Courtney Brown: Yeah, absolutely. Again we polled current students. Nearly, I think it was about 4,000 current college students and almost 6,000 alumni, and said, all right what's happening? And I think this is where some of the findings are really striking because, while these issues are dominating the public debate students are reporting much more positive experiences. You just mentioned about open dialogue on campus, and while public reception suggests that students feel unable to express their views, the student data tell a very different story. And this is true across party lines. So the public data, we saw differences between the right and the left. When we asked students, we saw that the vast majority between about 64 and 74% of students across political parties, say their professors encourage students to share their views. And, 70% felt that they were free to share their opinions on campus, which is very different than what the public is saying. And again, as I said, that's very similar findings, whether you're a democrat, republican, or independent.
Elliot Felix: do you think any of that is, a generational divide where the public polling is representing a sampling of folks that might be older and have a different mix of political views than current students? I you've also done amazing. You're, today's students, I think you've done amazing work at with that initiative, at helping people understand that, is it 35% or over 25 so I obviously, polling students doesn't mean you're just talking to 18 year olds, but could part of the difference be like a generational divide?
Courtney Brown: It could be we found some similar findings across age groups, even in the public polling. And so it's not that as much, I think it's a lot of people that hear the news, right? It's what the media is telling them. And depending on what news you're listening to that's what you're going to hear. And, the political part has been such, the top of the news for the last couple of years. And I think that's what people are listening to and hearing. And in the public polling, many more people on the right said it was political, and many more people on the left thought it was not affordable. They both thought that it's not aligned with the labor market. So I think that there are a few things that's an interesting, most of it is we're repeating what we each hear in the news, right? But it's really for the political piece. I think one of the other things when you think about people are concerned, it's too political because students don't feel like they belong. They don't have a voice there. And we also found that, well over two thirds of students say they feel like they belong on campus. And I think that's a really important measure also.
Elliot Felix: Yeah, and that tracks the National College Health Assessment. I think the most recent is 69% of students feel like they belong, which could certainly be higher. It'd be nice to be in the eighties. But I think which is where Neti puts it, but using different measures and I don't think, not since 2020, but still that doesn't show, that doesn't show a massive disconnect between a whole swath of people not feeling like their values or views are welcome and therefore they don't belong. It's interesting, like definitely on the demand side, there is this disconnect between perception and reality. On the kind of supply side, what institutions can do to not just like better, communicate the value, but what they need to do to deliver on the value for good jobs, good lives, as you're saying.
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Elliot Felix: What are the implications for institutions that are trying to put the findings from the reality check research into practice, like around belonging or other things?
Courtney Brown: Let's start with the belonging and the political piece, because while we're seeing a different story, it's still important to look at this and say, not everybody feels like they belong. Not everybody feels like they have freedom of speech. There's some glimmers of truth to some of the concerns people are having. And I think it's important that every institution take a look at what's happening on their campus, listen to their students in safe spaces so they can understand and make sure that no one is being discriminated against. And everyone has an open voice that they're encouraging people to share their opinion, because I think that's such a value in college, is you get to hear other perceptions and grow from them and understand where other people are coming from. All institutions could probably improve on that, but it's important to listen to your students.
Elliot Felix: Yeah. And it, it seems like part of that listening and the programming that helps that I like, I always think about this through the Robert Putnam bowling alone, bridging versus bonding capital. And it seems like one of the things that's a little bit under threat is how you create the safe spaces for an affinity group and our identity to have the bonding that enables the bridging right to have the have the safe spaces where you're with people who may you, you maybe share views or values or geography or ethnicity, race, whatever it might be. And that's in a way what's enabling you to then do the bridging and engage across difference and talk to people who are different from you and are one of the amazing things that can happen in the college experience. I feel like the bonding spaces are somewhat under attack, right? Maybe not the veteran Center, but the LGBTQ plus center or the women's center or the whatever.
Courtney Brown: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think the challenge is how do you, how can you be inclusive without being exclusive? Sure. That people, if they identify in a certain way, have a safe space to go and they're also not excluding others is a slippery slope. But I think people, students need that place. They need a place where they find identity. One of the things I always think about, you talked about today's students and I think about adult students. So most campuses aren't set up to have a place where adult students can go and be around other adult students, right? They need that. Not that they wanna exclude the 20-year-old, but they need to see that there are other people that look like them and that are experiencing very similar things. And they are because a 30-year-old with three children getting a bachelor's degree is very different than a 19-year-old living on campus full-time whose parents are fully supporting them. Yeah, it's really important to, to have your community and then also I love that the building and branching because only then can feel comfortable to, to branch out.
Elliot Felix: Yeah. And it is a tricky balance to strike. I've been lucky enough to plan dozens of different libraries on different campuses, and I can tell you every time you create like a graduate student commons, it's often a tough moment organizationally, because people have to wrap their heads around, okay, we're creating this space for graduate students and these may not even be adult learners over 25. Maybe they aren't. But you're acknowledging that they have different needs, specific needs, and, they want their own water cooler. They want their own clubhouse, but the moment they have to swipe into that. And an undergrad can't. That's always like a tough moment for a lot of people. 'cause they're, you're making something that's exclusive by meeting the needs of one group. But I think, I think there is room for that. I think as long as everybody can find their place in some way you can have some things that are for everyone and then you can have some that are more geared toward others.
Courtney Brown: Yeah. I think it's so important. We know that the feeling of belonging is one of the most important things for retention, for a student to feel like they belong. That this is their, people like them, that they have a voice there. Is essential. And so institutions need to continue to improve the ways they're able to do that.
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Elliot Felix: So what about acting on, I think nine out of 10 students felt like they, in your research, felt like they were learning career ready skills which is pretty great. What can folks do to make sure that every student is feeling that way and that courses connect to careers and they're building skills and relationships as part of their, degree certificate program or otherwise.
Courtney Brown: So again, the public doesn't believe it's well aligned with the workforce. Current students, 90% say they feel like they're learning these skills. About 75% of alumni say their degree was critical in getting a job and that they were able to get a good job, which is really good. But just like with belonging, there are things that colleges can do a better job about. Sometimes it's just articulating about the things that they're learning and how they connect to the workforce, because I don't think universities often do a good job courses and professors don't do a good job in saying how what we're learning is actually important to the workforce, how you're gonna use these skills. I think it's important that graduates can explain what they know and what they're able to do. They, when they finish and how that connects to jobs out there. I think institutions can do a better job about understanding what are the jobs of today and tomorrow, and build on some of those skills. I think that the durable skills are one of the hardest things for people to understand and wrap their arms around. But also the most essential thing, it's what employers want. It's what they can't teach. They can train employers, right? Train all the time, and you know about exactly what their organization needs. But those durable skills are really important in a critical part of a four year degree. Definitely, but explaining to the public what durable skills are and how they're learning those, explaining to current students what those are, I think is also harder for some institutions to do.
Elliot Felix: Yeah, one of the things I talk about in the book is how you build in those moments of reflection, because hindsight is usually better than foresight and. I've seen that in my own work where, national survey of students and the most recent one came back. And the thing that students most wanted, if you have to boil it down to one word, was growth, right? If they were, if they felt like they were growing, they were gaining skills, gaining confidence, building their network, being challenged then that had the highest correlation with their satisfaction with all kinds of different aspects of their experience. Whether it's the campus culture, the community, their coursework, their extracurriculars, whatever it might be, even the facilities and the technology. But then when you ask students, feel you, you're growing maybe two thirds say yes, but then all the research that talks to alumni. The perception of growth is way higher. It's 80, 90%. And I feel like part of how you close the gap, you can always do better and help people grow more and faster. But how you build in the moments when like people recognize that they are growing and as you're saying this thing that we just did is gonna help you in the future, I think is so critical.
Courtney Brown: Yes, every, everything you said, and I would also add you need more work-based experiences, right? Internships, apprenticeships the cooperative education, any of those things that students are able to experience. Yeah, of course. While they're getting credentials. And then I know that's. That's hard. It's easier said than done because there are only so many internships to go around. Yeah. But being creative on some of these, I think is really important. Even having guest lectures from industry right. From the course come in and talk to students is, small but really important pieces.
Elliot Felix: Yeah. And it's, I think those opportunities to make one plus one equal 11. Are really critical, like those work-based learning experiences. You do a class project for a company and you're building skills, you're building relationships. It's forcing that reflection and application. Maybe that company needs an intern this summer. Maybe that person becomes a role model, maybe it's an alum and they come back and they do a guest lecture in person or via zoom the next term, or the next class. Part of what was broken about. The old model is. Career development or skill development, these were like extra things to do in spare time you don't have. And as we know from your today's student research, if you don't integrate, there's lots and lots of students that aren't gonna be able to do it.
Courtney Brown: Yeah. And not just integrate it, but have it be part of the beginning, yeah. I don't know about you, but I think I got told when I was an undergraduate, probably the same month that I applied for graduation. So April, you should stop by the career office. Oh yeah. And that was like an afterthought about what kind of job I was gonna get in a month when I graduated. So it really needs to be at the beginning. And I think that's one of the important things, just being really transparent. What do you wanna do? What kind of job? What are you interested in? These are the things you need to learn and be able to do, or types of degrees you could get to get those jobs.
Elliot Felix: That's really not just integral, but earlier I think is is so critical. So we've talked about how to act on the findings in terms of belonging and career readiness. What about the kind of the third leg of the stool? You mentioned the cost one. What is your research showing about how to address concerns about affordability? And again, here it's also a communication issue, right? Because if you talk to people who know, the average cost of attendance is actually going down a little bit. When you look at the net, not the sticker price, but I think one out of a hundred in the general public would maybe know that. What are your thoughts on both better communication on cost and value, but also driving down cost from an access and affordability perspective?
Courtney Brown: Yeah, so there's an interesting tension here because we ask students, do you value the degree? Yeah. And the vast majority say this is a good investment. That investment, they're making colleges worthwhile and they still believe in the value of higher education. At the same time, only about half of students believe that colleges charge fair prices. So they believe in it, right? They just can't access it. And I think that's the real tension that, that we see. And it's a reality. It is too expensive. Even with prices coming down, it's outta reach for far too many students, are too many people in the United maybe a case where perception is reality, right? If people say, oh community college isn't that much. It's a couple thousand. A couple thousand dollars for many people is a choice between putting food on the table for their children or going to, take some classes. Yeah, you're gonna put on this table for your children every time as you should. Then sacrificing that for going to school. It is a reality for far too many people. So we do need to figure this out, how we think about cost. One of the most important things, and you mentioned this, is being really transparent about what the cost is. It is really confusing to figure out what anything in higher ed cost right now. We wouldn't stand for that in any selling, any other thing. But for some reason, unless it was a luxury good or something. Even luxury good. I can look online. I see exactly what I'm gonna pay. I see what I'm gonna pay today. Maybe airlines. I can't figure out why that changes every day. If I look up a flight today and then I look up the same flight tomorrow, it's different. Yeah. That I, that's how I think about tuition. I have four kids. I, four kids, three of them went to the same university and they were in the same college and every semester. They each had different tuition prices. It made no sense to me. I couldn't figure out what the difference was. And I, I know a little bit about higher ed. Mean it every day. So I can't understand that. I don't know how most people can understand these prices. So having more transparency. Having more transparency from day one, this is what it's gonna cost for the next four years. Like you do with a mortgage, I know what I'm gonna pay. Yeah. So I think we, we could do much better about being transparent about cost. That would help, it would help people understand what it's really going to cost. That it isn't, all colleges aren't a hundred thousand dollars. That's just the ones that make the, the media that you hear about all the time. Yeah. But that's not the reality for most people don't have to take out $400,000 in debt. So being transparent, and we've gotta figure out a way to get costs down. If we want to increase access and success, the prices are out of reach.
Elliot Felix: That's really. Great advice. You've done some great myth busting about perception versus reality and I'd love to hear what institutions should do to put this into practice.
Courtney Brown: So I would say when you put it all together, student success really comes down to the three things we talked about. Students need to feel like they belong, they need to develop skills that lead to meaningful careers, good jobs, and they need to access education they can actually afford. And I think when institutions focus on those three areas and they're really transparent about those and work on those areas, they strengthen both the value of higher education and the public's confidence in it.
Elliot Felix: That's great. Three great homework items for us to work on together.
Courtney Brown: Thank you. Thank you.
Elliot Felix: Thanks for listening to the Connected College podcast. Go to Elliot felix.com for more information about my book, the Connected College articles I've written and talks I've given. There's also tools you can download information on upcoming events and information on booking me to speak at your institution or organization. Please support the podcast by rating it and reviewing it wherever you're listening. Let's create connected colleges where all students succeed.