IBL News | San Antonio, Texas
The Educause Nonprofit Association presented its Top 10 trends for 2025 on higher education technology, highlighting the need to solve the industry’s trust problem. A majority of Americans (57%) distrust postsecondary institutions, and 68% think they’re moving in the wrong direction.
According to a June 2024 Gallup poll, the share of Americans who are confident in higher education has dropped by 21 percentage points in the past ten years.
“The three biggest reasons survey respondents gave for their lack of confidence in higher education are poor quality or irrelevant educational content (46%), politicized agendas (41%), and cost (28%),” Susan Grajek, Vice President, Partnerships, Communities, and Research, for Educause explained during keynote presentation in San Antonio, Texas, during the annual event of the association.
This trust problem is also reflected in how institutions use data and technology. AI is not contributing to increasing confidence. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust in AI companies has declined by fifteen percentage points in the last five years (from 50% to 35%) and by eight percentage points (from 61% to 53%).
“The higher education industry needs to develop a strategy and approach to AI,” explained Susan Grajek.
“Trust has an emotional component and a behavioral component. We trust people and organizations we believe are authentic and caring. But that’s not enough. We must also know that people, organizations, and things function well. Colleges and universities need to show that they understand and care about students, faculty, staff, and community members, and they need to work efficiently and effectively,” she added.
