by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
January 27, 2026
A narrator speaks over photographs of busy cityscapes, kids enjoying in a subject and ominous scenes of pure disasters and civil unrest.
“There’s no sugarcoating it,” the deep voice warns. “America’s future is underneath assault.”
Its salvation: increased training, personified by younger individuals proven listening attentively in school rooms and busy at work in high-tech labs.
“School,” the speaker concludes with the heroic inflection of a film cowboy: “Proud sponsor of America at its finest.”
This 60-second public service spot is a part of a small however rising response by the upper training trade to greater than a decade of plummeting public confidence and falling enrollment adopted by a yr of political assaults in opposition to which insiders and advocates concede it has till now been principally silent.
“Now we have let the narrative tackle a lifetime of its personal,” mentioned Tamalyn Powell, senior vp of upper training follow on the promoting company BVK, which developed the marketing campaign.
That’s been true not solely for the reason that begin of the second Trump administration — which minimize billions of {dollars} in federal analysis funding and cracked down on range insurance policies and worldwide college students — however earlier than then, when state legislatures had been imposing their very own restrictions and public help was already plunging.
Now the sector is peering excessive of the trenches and launching initiatives like this “Proud Sponsor” marketing campaign within the hope of reclaiming the message about itself.
“After years of headlines questioning the worth of school,” the marketing campaign’s creators defined once they unveiled it, they had been “reminding Individuals that increased training stays very important to the nation’s future.”
Associated: Occupied with improvements in increased training? Subscribe to our free biweekly increased training e-newsletter.
That’s turn into a more durable promote than it as soon as was. The proportion of Individuals who say school is “crucial” has slid from three-quarters when Gallup first requested the query in 2010 to a few third at the moment. Judging by Google search information, questions on “school worth,” “school value” and “school return on funding” proceed to develop. The proportion of highschool graduates going immediately to varsity has fallen from a excessive of 70 % in 2016 to 61 % in 2023.
“When all they’re listening to is ‘It prices a lot’ or ‘You’ll find yourself as a barista in a espresso store,’ then it’s more durable to interrupt via,” mentioned Charles Welch, president and CEO of the American Affiliation of State Faculties and Universities, or AASCU, a membership group of public increased training establishments?. “We’ve let that narrative be crafted for us.”
Even the entrepreneurs emphasize this isn’t only a advertising and marketing downside. Larger training has to grasp why individuals have misplaced religion in it, they are saying, and tackle these points.
AASCU has begun to place alumni ahead as what it calls “a robust supply of proof for demonstrating the true worth of postsecondary training.” It’s publicizing new survey outcomes that present state college and school graduates are typically happy with their educations.
“Now we have not performed an excellent job of constructing a case for our price,” mentioned Welch. “We’ve bought to get on the market and inform that story.”
The Huge Ten Educational Alliance of the athletic convention with the identical identify has rolled out an ad highlighting not the same old scenes of exuberant college students on leafy campuses however how these campuses produce “the medication that retains your loved ones wholesome” and “the discoveries that drive the nation and financial system ahead.”
Purdue College’s new promotional marketing campaign, which exhibits college students remodeling their private pursuits into careers, is “a love letter to the promise of school” meant “to win the hearts and minds of the skeptics,” spokesman Trevor Peters mentioned.
And Johns Hopkins College has created a marketing campaign in response to federal analysis funding cuts known as “Analysis Saves Lives,” making the emblem and different parts accessible without cost for anybody else who desires to make use of them.
These efforts could also be principally simply getting underneath approach, however they present that “there’s at the least recognition that we’ve got to do one thing” in response to the relentless criticisms, mentioned Terry Flannery, chief working officer of the trade advertising and marketing and communication affiliation CASE, or Council for Development and Assist of Training.
That issues like medical and scientific analysis are vital was beforehand assumed by increased training leaders to be self-evident, mentioned Jenny Petty, co-chair of the American Advertising Affiliation’s increased training committee and former vp of selling communications on the College of Montana.
“The truth that they’re saying, ‘Now we have to inform the world about our analysis’ is proof that that is altering,” Petty mentioned.
That change has been gradual. It took two years to develop the “Proud Sponsor” marketing campaign, which was created professional bono by BVK; the explanation most Individuals haven’t seen it but is as a result of CASE remains to be making an attempt to boost funding to air it from company and philanthropic sponsors.
It’s not that increased training doesn’t have cash for advertising and marketing. Faculties and universities spend, on common, almost $4 million a yr apiece on advertising and marketing and communications, or the equal of $607 per scholar, in accordance with information supplied by the upper training advertising and marketing company SimpsonScarborough, which tracks this.
The most important establishments have a median of 51 advertising and marketing and communication staff. These numbers have been going up, whilst school budgets are being minimize and workers laid off, researchers at Kennesaw State College and the College of Mississippi and Southern Mississippi College discovered.
However establishments have directed virtually all of those sources towards the more and more powerful job of attracting candidates to their very own campuses, mentioned Greg Summers, a senior strategic advisor at BVK and a former college provost — to not addressing mounting skepticism about whether or not school generally is value the fee to households and taxpayers.
“Most establishments, for comprehensible causes, wish to speak about themselves,” mentioned Summers. “They usually notably wish to do this within the context of recruiting college students.”
Talking with a single voice is even more durable in a better training sector that ranges from group schools to massive analysis universities — public, personal, nonprofit and for-profit — with totally different missions and pursuits.
However by failing to answer bigger criticisms, universities and schools have turn into a straightforward goal for critics of things like their purported ideological leanings, mentioned R. Ethan Braden, vp and chief advertising and marketing and communications officer at Texas A&M College.
Associated: Trump’s assaults on DEI might damage males in school admission
“When you’ve got a void in the way you’re being understood, you’ve got a selection,” mentioned Braden: “You may both fill that void or another person will fill it for you.”
That’s what specialists say has occurred — that universities and schools have let others commandeer the message, together with about whether or not the returns on a level are definitely worth the worth.
At the same time as strain constructed for universities and schools to confront this pattern, nevertheless, they discovered themselves a goal of the unprecedented onslaught by the Trump administration. As an alternative of talking out, they shut down.
“They mentioned, ‘We are able to’t actually speak about this and we will’t actually speak about that,’ ” mentioned Powell. Added Jason Simon, CEO of SimpsonScarborough: “It’s a difficult political and social atmosphere for any establishment. So increased ed is doing what they sometimes do, which is to be risk-averse and put their heads down within the sand.”
There are new causes for warning, together with concern about retaliation. “It’s not an irrational worry,” mentioned Petty. The presidents of the College of Virginia and Texas A&M and Northwestern universities, for instance, all resigned prior to now yr underneath political strain.
Associated: Faculties ease the dreaded admissions course of as the availability of candidates declines
What responses have occurred thus far have been low-key. Three months into President Donald Trump’s second time period, for instance, 400 of the nation’s 4,000 school presidents and chancellors signed a letter calling for “constructive engagement.” Seventy presidents used their spring commencements to talk out for civil discourse.
Larger training’s broader protection of itself has been “muted or principally nonexistent,” because the trade publication Inside Larger Ed put it. “Say one thing,” Wesleyan College’s Michael Roth, one of many few presidents who was publicly vital of Trump administration actions within the spring and summer season, implored his counterparts, in an op-ed in Slate.
“Larger training strikes slowly and intentionally and this previous yr it was transferring in opposition to forces that had been transferring a lot quicker,” mentioned Rajiv Vinnakota, president of the Institute for Residents and Students, which inspired these presidential remarks on the spring’s commencements. “It’s solely now that it’s catching up.”
Even at the moment, a lot of the response is coming from associations resembling CASE and AASCU, reasonably than from particular person establishments. The six principal associations that collectively symbolize virtually all schools and universities are additionally making an attempt to align their messages, mentioned Welch, at AASCU.
“There’s this thought that in the event you get up, you’re form of a fish in a barrel. However in the event you do it collectively, that’s safer,” Powell mentioned.
Among the many members of the Huge Ten convention, for instance, there was a push “to return collectively and present our impression” collectively, mentioned Kelly Hiller, chief advertising and marketing officer at Purdue, which is a part of the Huge Ten. “It positively looks like there’s this snowball of teams becoming a member of collectively to take a unified stance.”
There’s not a lot selection, mentioned Simon, as schools and universities now face the added problem of a demographic decline within the variety of traditional-age college students.
“Simply enjoying it protected will not be the precise technique anymore,” he mentioned. “Much less due to politics and extra due to social actuality, they’re starting to do issues they need to have been doing already, which is to actually care about what client sentiment is and take care of typical advertising and marketing issues, like worth and competitors,” he mentioned.
That’s about extra than simply advertising and marketing, Petty mentioned. Larger training wants to concentrate to what’s preserving prospects away. “I get just a little uninterested in individuals saying we simply want to inform our story higher,” she mentioned. “There’s a product downside” — professional questions concerning the outcomes supplied by increased training establishments for his or her value.
Associated: College students anxious about getting jobs are including further majors
That alumni survey AASCU hopes will assist rekindle public confidence in school, as an example, discovered that — whereas most graduates had been happy with their educations and careers and anticipated to earn greater than their dad and mom — solely round 40 % mentioned that their ensuing debt was manageable or that their schools helped them community with employers to seek out jobs.
It’s nonetheless early to understand how efficient increased training’s revamped gross sales pitches is perhaps. Practically 4 million social media customers have seen Johns Hopkins’ Analysis Saves Lives initiative, a college spokeswoman mentioned. Perceptions of the worth of upper training improved amongst greater than 2,000 Individuals who had been proven the “Proud Sponsor” marketing campaign, in accordance with BVK, together with individuals with out levels and in rural areas, who’ve been notably skeptical.
One factor is evident, mentioned Ted Eismeier, senior vp and head of postsecondary communications on the communications technique agency Whiteboard Advisors: Being absent from the dialog hasn’t labored.
“Perhaps the default is to say nothing or clamp down on communication and possibly that eliminates threat within the quick time period, but it surely’s not likely a long-term progress technique,” Eismeier mentioned.
“Establishments are going to need to emerge from this bunker and be much more vocal. Clamming up and treating public communication as this extremely managed train in threat mitigation — I don’t suppose that’s the trail for increased training to revive public belief in what it’s doing.”
Contact author Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, jmarcus@hechingerreport.org or jpm.82 on Sign.
This story about increased training advertising and marketing and PR was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group centered on inequality and innovation in training. Further reporting by Nichole Dobo. Enroll for our increased training e-newsletter.
This article first appeared on The Hechinger Report and is republished right here underneath a Inventive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Worldwide License.
