Initiative
Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education (APT)
APT equips AAC&U members and partners with tools to build a trusted and trustworthy education sector that is more effective, nimble, inclusive, in tune with the community it serves, and resilient in the face of political pressure.
Over the past decade, state and federal policymakers have increasingly pursued efforts to restrict college and university curricula, programming, research, and operations in the United States.
These efforts have been successful only because public opinion has shifted. More and more Americans have come to distrust colleges and universities. Polls show that American confidence in and support for higher education has declined sharply.
There is no way around it: if college and university leaders hope to fulfill their institutions’ missions and defend higher education from governmental attacks, they need to tackle the problem of declining public trust.
AAC&U’s Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education initiative works with campus and civil society leaders to build trusted and trustworthy higher education institutions, to develop tools and resources that can be used at the campus level and sector-wide, and to build communities of practice that will advance the work of transformation.
Public trust in higher education is a dynamic of the relationship between colleges and universities and the public. Institutions and their representatives foster public trust by demonstrating their trustworthiness consistently through effective actions that promote the public good.
Project Staff
Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education is supported in part by grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Higher Education Forward Fund.