[agrajag]

> The primary take-away seems to be that, since 2015, Republican confidence in higher ed has dropped 36%, and Democrat confidence has dropped 12%.

It’s a little hard to tease out how much of this is due to the demographics of Republicans and Democrats changing. There’s been a significant shift in education level between the two parties recently, and this may have offset some of what would otherwise be broad based decreases.

The broader decrease in faith in higher education is still quite clear signal though.

[roenxi]

That demographic theory seems a bit feeble. According to the polling back in 2015 there was a slight bias but splitting by politics painted the same picture in a with minor adjustments. Then there was a massive realignment where suddenly the right wing "lost confidence". It isn't obvious why less-educated individuals would have no confidence in education either. That is like saying less-physically-endowed people don't respect height or muscle mass! People can respect what they do not have if it is respectable, and they can have confidence in things they personally lack if they are things inspiring confidence.

Although what the word "confidence" means here is a baffler. It is beyond vague.

[UberFly]

"There’s been a significant shift in education level between the two parties recently"

Not sure I believe this. What's the source of this statistic?

[trealira]

I'm not that person, but the Pew Research Center says that, in 1994, 57% of Democratic voters were white non-college graduates, while in 2019, it was 30%. For Republicans, 68% of their voters were white non-college graduates in 1994, and it was 57% in 2019. The Democrats seem to have been shedding this demographic much faster than Republicans have been.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/02/in-changing-...

Pew also has a more up-to-date analysis of partisanship and education here:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship...

They do say that there's a relatively recent shift in voters who went to college towards the Democratic party.

The Republican Party now holds a 6 percentage point advantage over the Democratic Party (51% to 45%) among voters who do not have a bachelor’s degree. Voters who do not have a four-year degree make up a 60% majority of all registered voters.

By comparison, the Democratic Party has a 13-point advantage (55% vs. 42%) among those with a bachelor’s degree or more formal education.

This pattern is relatively recent. In fact, until about two decades ago the Republican Party fared better among college graduates and worse among those without a college degree.

[Propelloni]

I don't know if it qualifies as a shift, significant or otherwise, because I don't know how it was before. But a quick internet search for "biden trump voters education level" brought forth a few reports by news sites and research outfits.

According to Ipsos and Reuters about a third of Trump voters have a college degree or better. Pew has an more detailed analysis of voters for the 2016. 2018, and 2020 elections here [1], including education, which seems to confirm this.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-biden...