Can Higher Education Help Renew American Democracy?

In Short

• A survey of the nation’s civic health reveals troubling trends, with historic lows in trust among individuals and key institutions such as government, media, and the courts. Political polarization has significantly increased among Americans in the last 40 years, surpassing eight other democratic nations and challenging the idea that it is merely a global phenomenon.

• Higher education should focus on fostering students’ understanding of democratic norms, values, and institutions, equipping them with the necessary skills and attitudes for active civic participation. Inspiring students to recognize the significance of being a responsible citizen and sharing stories of historical figures who brought about transformational change through grassroots action can encourage students to believe in their ability to make a meaningful impact on society.

• Colleges and universities can play a crucial role in supporting democracy by advancing five key goals: civic learning, national service and volunteering, bridging divides, trusted elections and representative and responsible governance, and access to trusted news and information.

Introduction by Ashley P. Finley, PhD, Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President, American Association of Colleges and Universities

Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia on the premise that a college education should not just be a public good for some, but a public good for all. The foundations of pluralistic democracy pervade the article by John Bridgeland, Cecilia Muñoz, and Danielle Allen. Articulated through the Five Democracy Goals, the authors call for higher education to reassert its central role in strengthening democracy by catalyzing action and confronting the inequities that continue to define our imperfect democracy even in modern times.

At the heart of this article is the mission of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which is to advance the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education. To champion a liberal education is to look beyond the insinuation of “liberal” as a political label, and to embrace the meaning of the word’s Latin root—liber—“to free.” A liberal education is an education aimed at equipping students with the skills and capacities to think for themselves and to free the mind. The opposite of a liberal education is an education that is devoid of constructive dialog, action, and awareness. Bridgeland, Muñoz, and Allen provide the kind of practical roadmap needed for these historic times, as we seek to repair our fragile democracy and strengthen civil discourse. This article reminds us that higher education has a vital role to play in our democratic renewal through engaging students’ civic learning and supporting their development as civic actors.

The three of us speak regularly at colleges and universities around the country. We find ourselves overwhelmed by students seeking mentorship and guidance toward civically engaged professional trajectories, but often without the support they need on our campuses. Civic education and engagement in our universities—educating toward self-government and engaged citizenship—could use a major reset.

Higher education has always been at the forefront of promoting the public good by educating generations of students to live more effectively in their times. Surveys show, however, that while most young people are worried the country is going in the wrong direction and believe they have the power to change the country for the better, far too many—particularly those from historically marginalized communities—do not feel well-informed or qualified enough to participate in their democracy and advance the public good (Booth et al., 2023).

The current state of our democracy should sound an alarm that we need a national effort to revitalize the role of higher education in fostering the civic knowledge and engagement that are so central to democratic renewal. We are trying to do our part by working together in an effort called “More Perfect” (https://www.joinmoreperfect.us/), a national initiative to advance five democracy goals among 30 Presidential Centers, the National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia, and more than 100 partners. The five goals are universal civic learning, national service and volunteering, bridging divides, trusted elections and representative and responsible governance, and access to trusted news and information. The time could not be more urgent.

The Decline in Civic Health

As we survey the nation’s civic health, we have consistently found disturbing trends (National Conference on Citizenship, n.d.). Trust in one another and in key institutions—government, media, and even the courts—are at historic lows. Political polarization has grown rapidly among Americans in the last 40 years and more so than in eight other democratic nations, debunking the notion that it is just part of a global trend (News from Brown, 2020).

Americans are increasingly isolated, with the percentage of Americans living alone having tripled since the 1950s (Chamie, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the isolation with months of shut-ins and shut-downs.

Four large-scale civic institutions that bring people together to exercise their civic muscles—faith-based institutions, daily newspapers, unions, and political parties for grassroots participation sustained beyond campaigns—have declined dramatically over the last century (Putnam & Bridgeland, 2017). In just one of those integrating institutions, more than 2,500 local newspapers have disappeared over the last two decades, together with the civic glue they represent for community engagement and holding government officials accountable (Roadmap for Local News, 2023). If there had been a more robust local news outlet reporting on the candidacy of George Santos for Congress, for example, we wonder if he would have been elected (Ellison, 2022).

Americans have also become less civically active. Regular volunteering is down from about 30 percent of the population in the years after September 11, 2001 (9/11) to just 23 percent in 2021 (Schneider & Marshall, 2023). National service opportunities in programs like the Peace Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, AmeriCorps, and Senior Corps are dramatically down from the high levels after 9/11, and government agencies administering these programs are having difficulty filling available slots. The picture of democracy in America about which de Tocqueville (2000) wrote in a two-volume book—with the array of voluntary associations engaging Americans in public problem solving of all kinds—has diminished right at a time when our country needs such civic stock the most.

The decline in civic health has taken our country into even more disturbing places. An insurrection at our U.S. Capitol attempted to overturn the results of a presidential election. Five people died, and more than 138 were injured, including police officers. A former president and hundreds of candidates for public office continued to deny the legitimacy of election results, even though Republican-led reviews of court cases showed no evidence of consequential fraud (Schonfeld, 2022). The will of the people through voting and the peaceful transfer of power are basic foundations of our democracy. So are truth and truthfulness, yet our nation is awash in “alternative facts” and intentional disinformation.

In examining the evidence related to the cycle of polarization and hatred that can lead to violence and the targeting of Americans by race, ethnicity, faith, politics, or other differences, we see additional disturbing trends. Federally reported hate crimes have increased for the fourth consecutive year, to the highest levels in more than a decade (Community Relations Service, 2023). Political violence from the right and the left has reached the highest levels since 1994 (with right-wing violence three times as high as left wing, including incidents ranging from homicide to property destruction to harassment; Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2020). Last year broke the record for the most school shootings (Blad, 2022). In 2022, white supremacy activity rose to the highest levels in recent years (ADL Center on Extremism, 2023). Even the guardians of democracy are under attack—in 2020, one in six election workers reported being threatened (Edlin & Baker, 2022), threats against judges have doubled over the last 4 years (Lynch, 2022), threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold between 2016 and 2022 (NBC News, 2022), and, in 2020, U.S. journalists faced an unprecedented level of attacks (Jacobsen, 2020).

A nationally representative survey of Americans conducted for our Dignity.US initiative (now named Bedrock.US; https://www.bedrock.us/) shows that 87 percent of Americans recognize that hate-fueled violence has increased in recent years, and more than two-thirds worry about their own safety in public places. Americans should not have to live in fear when they learn, work, pray, or otherwise connect to their communities.

Fortunately, these somber trends do not tell the complete story. There is also good news to report about Americans awakening to protect, renew, and renovate democracy.

Voting rates in the 2020 presidential election soared to levels not seen in decades (Desilver, 2021). Voters in six battleground states rejected for key state offices candidates who were spreading false narratives that the former president won the 2020 election (Bridgeland, 2022).

A robust civic core of millions of Americans who do most of the voting, volunteering, and community projects provides a solid foundation for civic engagement (National Conference on Citizenship, n.d.). In times of need, low-income Americans are the most likely to step up to help strangers who need shelter, food, and other essentials (National Conference on Citizenship, n.d.). Calls to action by presidents and other leaders typically result in a resounding response from the American people, as evidenced by the millions of Americans who have raised their hand to welcome the Afghan, Ukrainian, and other refugees who have recently entered the United States (https://welcome.us/).

Veterans returning from military service are finding their civic mission continues on the home front, as volunteering boosts their own connections to work, community, and family (Bridgeland & Yonkman, 2009). Innovators in the use of technology are creating communities of interest across the country and globe to tackle a wide range of challenges. Members of the youngest generations, Millennials and Gen Z, are constantly inventing new social enterprises to address public challenges of all types (National Conference on Citizenship, n.d.).

What Higher Education Can Do Now for Democracy

Higher education, of course, cannot address all these civic ills or claim responsibility for the positive developments. It does, though, have a fundamental role to play in civic education and engagement that fosters knowledgeable citizens and responsible leaders as part of its public good mission.

Historian David McCullough reminded us that every State Constitution, including the Massachusetts Constitution that preceded the federal Constitution by a decade, puts the cultivation of citizens at the center of education (2002). The drafters knew that an educated citizenry—with knowledge of our history; the Charters of Freedom; and the roles citizens play in electing representatives, checking political corruption, and ensuring that policies both reflect the will of majorities and protect minorities—was fundamental to sustaining a healthy democracy.

The father of American public education, Horace Mann, believed a nation could not remain both ignorant and free, and he helped achieve mandatory education requirements for every student in Massachusetts that then served as a model for the nation. He stated more than 150 years ago, “One of the highest and most valuable objects to which the influences of a school can be made conducive consists in training our children to self-government” (quoted in Bok, 2021).

Today, the majority of high-school graduates (62 percent) go directly to college, and millions more will eventually enroll as working adults. While civic and history learning in K–12 remains foundational, we need new attention to civic and democratic learning in higher education (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). Civic learning in college can and should help democracy rebuild and renew our capacity to work together to form a “more perfect union,” a durable goal for our constitutional republic.

In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “The Crisis of Civic Education,” former Harvard College president Derek Bok (2017) challenged the higher educational sector “to ask what more can be done to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in a democratic society” and offered a range of ideas. We ask the same question and are working together to explore innovations in higher education in a diverse range of institutions that can demonstrate how civic education and engagement can be brought to scale.

Our shared experiences with higher education tell us that much more can be done to foster new generations of students who understand democratic norms, values, and institutions and who have the skills and dispositions needed for effective and rewarding civic participation. They should be inspired to learn that, as Mortimer Adler (1987) wrote in We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution, for the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, in a democracy, “citizen”—not president, senator, or governor—is the highest office in the land. They should know, too, as a point of inspiration what historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talked about at the launch of our More Perfect initiative in July 2021—that transformational change comes from the ground up, from citizens often without any public platform taking action to improve their communities and country. This is the story of John Muir and the national park system, Susan B. Anthony in the women’s rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., in the quest for civil rights, and many other Americans who understand the role of citizen in a democracy. We need to remind students that they, too, can make their mark on history.

In order to spark a further national conversation about the civic mission of higher education, so often embedded in the mottos of colleges and universities, we offer the following concrete ideas.

Required Courses in Democratic Citizenship

To maintain a free society, Americans have to understand democratic norms, values, and the roles of institutions. They also need a set of skills and dispositions that support the operations of constitutional democracy. We believe the faculties of America’s colleges and universities should innovate by creating required civic curricula.

A vision now exists, through the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap project, for what excellence in history and civic learning looks like in K–12. That vision prioritizes an inquiry-based approach to learning and instructional strategies that give students a chance to integrate mastery of core knowledge with experiential learning to support their understanding of responsible and authentic civic participation. The Roadmap framework integrates long-lived bodies of knowledge—about the philosophical foundations of democracy and our political institutions—with more recent advances in the anchor disciplines of political science and history—for instance, new understanding of the importance of social movements to the functioning of democracy and new research that makes it possible to integrate long-hidden histories of women, people of color, and working people into the American story. We hope to see equally powerful visions for civic learning emerge in higher education and new strategies for reaching all students on campus, and many institutions are making important strides.

College faculty have struggled for decades to come to shared visions for how to support the civic development of our students. Yet this work is necessary. At a bare minimum, we cannot equip ourselves with the educators we need to deliver civic learning in K–12 if we are not providing our college students with this basic education. What would it take for our college graduates to be equipped to teach all across America in support of the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap? Considering answers to that question would help us move forward.

Some institutions have begun to step up. The American Association of Colleges and Universities has already led work on civic learning in college majors. Stanford now has a course in democracy that is taken by the vast majority of its first-year students. Arizona State has established a School for Civic and Economic Thought and Learning. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has established an Institute for American Civics that will seek to seed new courses throughout the curriculum. The James Madison Center for Civic Engagement integrates civic learning opportunities in courses and academic programs with faculty and departments across campus. In all cases, these efforts succeed because faculty members lead and make the case within the faculty that it is time for us to renew our commitment to the civic education of all of our students.

Then-Senator John F. Kennedy (1960) reminded us, “There is a connection … between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was also the age of Shakespeare.” By improving the foundation of our democracy, human talent and the entrepreneurial spirit have more room to flourish in and across all fields.

Civic Seals on Diplomas

Let us face it. Students are practical and they respond to incentives that help them do better in school, get a decent-paying job, and have opportunities to live a more complete life. Seven states have established civics diploma seals for high-school graduation. Colleges and universities could create concrete pathways that lead to civic seals on diplomas that reflect a commitment to civic learning and that honor the civic contributions of students who have engaged in serious civic work—such as national and community service, experiential learning, and other civic contributions while in college.

Experiential learning opportunities can allow students to exercise their civic muscles. We might reinstate the Learn and Serve Program at the Corporation for National and Community Service to support students in internships with local nonprofits and public service roles. The Partnership for Public Service hosts the Call to Serve network (https://ourpublicservice.org/our-solutions/workforce/call-to-serve-colleges-and-universities/), an initiative to work with higher education professionals, college students, and recent graduates to help them understand the federal government and federal career opportunities. More higher education institutions should join this or similar efforts to demonstrate their commitment to government and the role it plays in our democracy. Govern for America (https://www.govforamerica.org/about-gfa) works with colleges and universities to recruit, train, and place recent graduates into full-time jobs and support them as they develop into effective public sector leaders throughout their 2-year fellowship. Public service in action should be an easily accessible opportunity for our college students.

Supporting a Year of National Service

Longitudinal studies show that those who engage in a year of national service become better citizens, with higher rates of volunteering, voting, and engagement in their communities than peers who do not perform a service year (Bridgeland & DiIulio, 2019). Some programs, such as Teach for America, generate leaders who go on to lead exceptional efforts as principals, superintendents, and chief state school officers to improve the educational outcomes of children. Conservation Corps alums become better stewards of the environment. Habitat for Humanity alums and volunteers see the crisis in affordable housing and how communities can address it. Experience in the Peace Corps influences the choice of careers of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, many of whom go on to enter government service; makes them more open to people of different races, ethnicities, religions, and national origins; and results in volunteering rates among Returned Peace Corps Volunteers more than double the national average (Bridgeland et al., 2011).

Colleges have a critical role to play in encouraging a year of national service. They could send signals in admissions that give applicants who have performed national service a leg up; they could encourage a bridge or gap year from high school to college, during college, or from college to graduate school or employment and prompt a service capstone paper reflecting on the experience; and they could promote national service opportunities as a common expectation on campus. Current federal programs and now some state programs, such as those in California (https://www.californiavolunteers.ca.gov/californiansforall-college-corps/), Utah (https://twitter.com/GovCox/status/1744416616434323610), and Maryland (https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/Governor-Moore-Signs-Revolutionary-Service-Year-Program-For-Graduating-High-School-Seniors-into-Law.aspx), provide substantial incentives and education awards that can defray the cost of college for those who do a service year. Campus Compact deserves a doubling of philanthropic support and could create competitions among colleges to boost national service enrollment (Seigsohn, 2021).

Building Bridges Across Our Divides

A nationally representative survey of American voters and research shared in the book Our Common Bonds shows that most Americans first identify with their families, friends, and faiths, but the national media would lead you to believe that we first identify by our political parties, as the nation is being ripped apart by politics (de Groot, 2023; National Survey by Hart Research for More Perfect, 2023). Colleges and universities have a critical role to play in enabling students to have vigorous and contentious debates about a whole range of issues while engaging in civil discourse that respects students who may hold different views. On some campuses, College Republicans and College Democrats are experimenting with joint events (Pickus, 2022). There are exciting nonprofit efforts underway focused on bringing bridge-building programming to college campuses, such as Interfaith America, the Constructive Dialogue Institute, and Bridge USA. And campuses, too, are increasingly developing bridging programs. For instance, the Inter-Collegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership brings together cross-ideological cohorts of students from St. Philips College in San Antonio, Texas; California State University at Bakersfield, California; Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida; Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Students learn how to dialog across difference and help program public conversations on hard issues for their campus—tackling subjects ranging from guns to climate to abortion.

Advance 5 Democracy Goals

The world mobilized around “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), which inspired governments, businesses, nonprofits, and multilateral institutions to help make extraordinary commitments and gains to improve health, reduce poverty, and more (United Nations, n.d.). Because of the efforts on AIDS and malaria alone, more than 35 million lives have been saved. The SDGs inspired the creation of our initiative, More Perfect, which today includes 30 Presidential Centers, National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia, and more than 100 partners to advance five “Democracy Goals” (More Perfect, n.d.).

Colleges and universities can adopt and help advance these goals—civic learning, national service and volunteering, bridging divides, trusted elections and representative and responsible governance, and access to trusted news and information—and take a stand in supporting our democracy. In addition to the work to advance the first three that we reference above, colleges and universities can expand their efforts to educate students on how elections work across the more than 10,000 jurisdictions that administer them, the checks and balances that exist to avoid error and fraud, and the opportunities that students have to vote, become poll workers, and volunteer in other ways to build trust in our elections. Given the rise of allegations of “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and the low levels of trust in the media, students should also be taught how to decode news and information, just as they are taught to code in the digital age (Spellings & Bridgeland, 2021). College newspaper editors and reporters should be given more opportunities to do internships with local newspapers and learn about innovative models to preserve the future of local news outlets that marry smart business models with trusted journalism. Report for America (https://www.reportforamerica.org/about-us/) is a national service program that places journalists into undercovered communities.

Campus-Wide Democratic Renewal

Many universities have institutes of government or politics engaging students in learning about the workings of our democracy and issues of the day. These centers need to work with those directly responsible for the college curriculum, both its general education requirements and its departmental programs and certificates. The Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia (https://karshinstitute.virginia.edu/) works across the university with the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Center for Politics, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, Miller Center, other affiliated schools and centers, and the Office of the Provost to put democratic inquiry at the center of education. Many institutes of politics and government exist within colleges and universities. Drawing on the focus and strengths of these institutions and having them work across colleges, community colleges, technical schools, and graduate schools will help increase the focus on the civic mission of higher education.

Presidential Summit on Democratic Renewal and Higher Education

The best ideas are likely to emerge from colleges and universities themselves in all of their wonderful diversity—public, private, independent, community, technical, historically black, Hispanic-serving, and tribal colleges and universities, and within the many associations and networks that represent them. The Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition (https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/new-coalition-formed-to-advance-the-civic-mission-of-postsecondary-education) is working to strengthen the civic mission of schools (https://www.collegeciviclearning.org/) and increase civic learning for all college students, especially those who have historically been underserved both in society and in education. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (https://www.amacad.org/) is working on a toolkit that can help all campuses think about how they can strengthen their work in democracy education. The American Political Science Association (https://www.apsanet.org/About/About-APSA) is organizing the program of its 2024 conference around democracy. The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has a network of 61 College Presidents for Civic Preparedness (https://collegepresidents.org/). The American Association of Colleges and Universities and Campus Compact are partnering with the Karsh Institute of Democracy and More Perfect to foster communities of practice across college campuses and advance the five Democracy Goals. We propose an annual action-forcing summit among college presidents and other leaders that features innovations in higher education that foster democratic renewal. Such a forum could highlight those efforts that could be brought to scale at other institutions. A report from colleges and universities to the nation could track the progress we are making on a range of outcomes and innovations over time. It could inspire more action on college campuses, philanthropic support for such efforts, and even reforms in government and across state systems to policies and programs, in areas such as national service and federal work-study (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.).

At a ceremony at the College of William and Mary, former secretary of defense, CIA director, and chancellor Robert Gates said, “Across history, there have been two institutions—colleges and faith-based institutions—that have transcended time to be there for every generation. They are worth investing in.”

As our colleges and universities continue to play such central roles in educating and engaging generations of Americans, we can inspire students to understand our democracy and their vital role in it. And we can remind them, as John Gardner, the only Republican cabinet member in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, so eloquently put the democratic proposition, “[F]reedom and obligation, liberty and duty: that’s the deal” (1991). Or as Martin Luther King, Jr., put it, the goal is “a real sharing of power and responsibility” (1968/2003)

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John M. Bridgeland

John Bridgeland is the Executive Chairman of the Office of American Possibilities, a civic moonshot factory to tap the entrepreneurial talent of Americans to solve public challenges together across divides; Co-Chair and Chief Executive Officer of More Perfect; a former Director of the White House Domestic Policy for President George W. Bush; and a former member of the White House Council for Community Solutions for President Barack Obama.

Cecilia Muñoz

Cecilia Muñoz is the Co-Chair of the Office of American Possibilities, Co-Chair of More Perfect, and a former Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council for President Barack Obama. Cecilia is a national leader in public policy and public interest technology with over three decades of experience in the nonprofit sector and eight years of service on President Obama’s senior team.

Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen is Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Co-Chair of the Our Common Purpose Commission. Danielle is a leader and member of More Perfect’s National Advisory Council.