Confidence in higher education is declining across the United States.
Fewer Americans say a college degree is very important: A growing share believe the system is headed in the wrong direction, particularly when it comes to preparing students for employment.
Not surprisingly, college enrollment has fallen in recent years. And nowhere are the stakes of this decline more visible than in high-poverty Southern states like Louisiana and Mississippi, where economic opportunity is unevenly distributed and just one in four adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
For families struggling to make ends meet, the promise that education will lead to better opportunities may feel distant or unrealistic. The result is a troubling paradox: Communities that could benefit most from strong universities are often the ones where confidence in them has eroded the most.
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In the South, where inequality is persistent and public systems are under strain, universities are one of the few types of available institutions that can reduce that strain. In fact, universities should and often do function as a part of shared civic infrastructure, but that role is largely invisible to the public. At a time when trust in institutions is fragile and public investments are constrained, we can no longer afford to be invisible.
To be recognized as a public good, universities must do a better job of demonstrating how their work strengthens communities and expands opportunity in the regions they serve.
Universities can bring research funding, job opportunities, skilled workers, hospitals and cultural institutions. They can attract talent: students, faculty and entrepreneurs from across the country and around the world who build careers, start businesses, boost local economies and contribute mightily to the economic and civic life of the regions around them.
But to do that, universities must first attract in-state students and bring other young people into the state, connect them to local employers and create the kinds of research, medical access and technology ecosystems that help retain graduates as residents.
States such as Louisiana are losing population and aging faster than the national average. At the same time, many young adults who earn college degrees in poor Southern states are leaving for opportunities elsewhere, contributing to a brain drain of educated workers.
Political and policy environments in parts of the South are fueling the exodus. For example, faculty in Southern states who have witnessed political interference on their campuses reported that they are looking for positions elsewhere. And states that have banned abortions have seen a reduction in medical trainees applying to OB-GYN residency programs.
I saw a different model growing up in Mississippi, for decades the nation’s poorest state. My family was part of a generation of immigrants and migrants who came to the state in the 1960s and 1970s to teach and conduct research at its universities, which attracted intellectual capital from across the country and the world. Many stayed for generations; their children became doctors, entrepreneurs, educators and taxpayers who contributed to economic and civic life.
This system worked not only because of individual drive, but because the universities created clear pathways for talent to enter, build careers and put down roots. There were stable academic positions, research opportunities and strong connections to local economies.
Today, declining investment in higher education, reduced career advantages from college degrees and policy environments that deter graduate education and recruitment of international talent have weakened these pipelines, making it harder for states to attract and retain the very people who can drive long-term economic and civic growth.
While universities bring economic, intellectual and infrastructure benefits, poorer and less educated communities may experience less of that benefit. Medical schools illustrate this dynamic clearly. Most newly trained physicians remain in the states where they trained, but we see less retention in poorer states, many of which are in the South. In Louisiana, roughly half of medical school graduates ultimately leave the state.
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Strengthening pathways from education to in-state employment is essential. Universities must boost partnerships with local health systems, schools and industries to create paid internships, field placements and residency pipelines that embed students in communities during their training. These experiences not only build skills, they increase the likelihood that graduates will remain and work in the regions where they trained.
Work connected to a local community and designed to be responsive and accountable to that local community benefits the community, and in turn the students and researchers who participate in this work feel more bound and connected to the community, increasing their inclination to stay and produce work that is by design contributing to the public good.
I’ve taken these lessons to heart in my own work as a public health researcher at a university in Louisiana. With support from students and local research staff, I lead analysis of statewide violence surveys that provide population-based data on intimate partner violence, sexual violence and other forms of harm in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and we provide these reports to policymakers, advocates and public agencies to help them understand patterns of violence.
This impact is already visible. Our population-based surveys produced statewide estimates of intimate partner violence and quantified its economic costs — evidence that helped make the case for increased public investment. In Louisiana, advocates used the data to secure $7 million in state funding, contributing to a doubling of shelter capacity for survivors seeking safety and providing an essential source of public knowledge.
No single institution can meet workforce, health and economic challenges alone, but universities must play a major role by becoming part of the civic infrastructure, providing community benefits and rebuilding faith in institutions.
Anita Raj, a Mississippi native, is executive director of the Newcomb Institute and a professor of public health at Tulane University in Louisiana, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about public trust in universities in the South was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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