How Higher Ed Can ‘Safeguard’ for Democracy

Amid a tense and polarized election cycle, conversations about higher education’s role in democracy have been bubbling, spurring a renewed focus on civic engagement and constructive discourse.

But a white paper released Thursday argues that to preserve a healthy republic, higher education leaders must also focus on making colleges more accessible and improving completion rates.

“There is no one thing that explains the current state of our democracy, but I think that we overlook the dramatic role that higher education does play in predicting its health,” said Charles Ansell, vice president for research, policy and advocacy at Complete College America, the national advocacy group behind the report.

“Higher education is touted, and rightly so, as the gateway to participating in our economy” and therefore American democracy, he added, noting that earning a college degree boosts socioeconomic mobility and helps create the financial stability necessary to live comfortably and engage in civics and volunteer work.

CCA argues that when the higher education system is working well for all, it leads to a better quality of life, which fosters belief in and more engagement with democracy at large. But with more than 40 million Americans who have some college credit but no degree and the growing burden of student loan debt taking its toll on borrowers, the U.S. higher education system does not work well for everyone.

“What we’re suggesting here is that if the road to having a living wage, career mobility and the ability to support a family is through college, college has become increasingly unaffordable and most students aren’t graduating, then that feels like a rigged system,” Ansell said. “And a rigged system is the antithesis of democracy.”

In other words, if the public higher education system is broken and degree completion becomes intangible for many, it taints individuals’ trust in public institutions and democracy over all.

“At a time of growing skepticism around higher education and the value of a college degree, the report speaks to the urgency of investing in higher education as a catalyst for socioeconomic mobility and as a safeguard for our republic,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, a principal partner with CCA in the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition. “It highlights the salience of philosopher John Dewey’s famous aphorism that ‘democracy has to be born anew each generation, and education is its midwife.’”

Completion Is Key

Solving the degree-completion challenges facing higher ed—and, by proxy, American democracy—starts with identifying the roots of the problem, which the report says are twofold and intertwined. One is that many low-income and minority students don’t attend college full-time, and the other is a lack of access to financial resources that make attending full-time possible.

Attending college full-time while working fewer hours for pay correlates with higher completion levels, multiple studies have found. But the full-time commitment requires resources to cover tuition and living expenses. Only a small proportion of low-income or nontraditional students—particularly those attending public regional, minority-serving and junior colleges—have access to enough savings or financial aid to do so without working more than 20 hours a week and/or taking on debt.

This leads many of those students to enroll part-time and work full-time instead, making them less likely to complete their degree and to actively engage in a curriculum that fosters civic education and builds a skill set essential to participation in democracy, the report argues.

“Higher education today is not functioning as an engine of economic mobility as much as it is perpetuating an elite upper class,” the report states. “These systemic flaws in U.S. higher education stand in opposition to a vibrant democracy.”

The solution, CCA argues, is making the link between college completion and democratic health clear to student success professionals and eliminating existing time barriers created by the institutions themselves, such as noncredit prerequisite courses and the lack of credit for prior learning. Additionally, CCA advocates for continuing to foster civic engagement curricula and boosting research on the role higher education plays in a healthy democracy to demonstrate the impact of investment and encourage lawmakers to increase funding for financial aid.

Part of the Job Description

For Nancy Thomas, executive director of the AAC&U Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, the idea that college completion and degree attainment plays an essential role in civic engagement and a healthy democracy is not new—even if awareness is lacking.

“I run a lot of workshops with faculty, and I talk about the relationship between democracy and higher education with faculty. I’m always stunned to find people who don’t know that educating for a democracy is part of the job description,” Thomas said. “So the [CCA] report is worthy because it reminds us of that important history and that essential role for colleges and universities.”

But she’s also concerned that convincing lawmakers about the crucial value of higher ed to democracy—and encouraging them to increase funding—may be tricky. Educating for a strong democracy, she said, requires the political will to bolster academic freedom and allow educators to call out disinformation.

“I’m worried about the barriers getting in the way of the agenda,” Thomas said. "Literally, we can’t do this if we are muzzled. We cannot [promote healthy democracy] if there is no commitment to honest disagreement … and complete histories being taught … I love this report, and I appreciate it. I just want to go in with eyes wide-open about these headwinds.”

Irene Mulvey, a past president of the American Association of University Professors, said that though the idea of college as a tool for fostering a healthy democracy is deeply ingrained in the bones of higher ed, the system is currently falling short.

“Instead of addressing inequity and promoting social mobility, our current system exacerbates and perpetuates inequity based on one’s ability to attend college full-time,” she said. “Unless we all work together to ensure accessibility and affordability to higher ed and to demand that higher ed do a better job in promoting civic engagement, we are complicit in undermining democracy.”