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Am I missing something here? The figures quoted in the opening paragraph suggest to me that confidence is rising. > Confidence in college has taken a nosedive,

Am I missing something here? The figures quoted in the opening paragraph suggest to me that confidence is rising. > Confidence in college has taken a nosedive, with one out of three poll responders claiming they have “little or no confidence” in higher education. This contrasts sharply with a 2015 poll, when 57% of those surveyed claimed to to be fairly or “very” confident in the old hallowed halls.

Jtsummers 2y ago
https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-educat... - linked in the first sentence. The poll data itself helps to clarify. It went from 10% answering very little/none to now 32%, and 57% great deal/quite a lot down to 36%. That's a pretty big shift.
amalcon 2y ago
Looks like there is a "some" option. For some reason the author quotes one number from one year, a second from the other, and ignores the third option in both. Ignore "not sure" respondents in polls at your own peril.
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  The some (there were actually 5 options) line is almost flat: 33, 34, 40, 32. It peaked and then settled back to about 1/3rd of respondents.
TeaBrain 2y ago
It is confusing because the author was really messy with her use of the figures to where that sentence reads nonsensically. The actual Gallup news article that is cited by the article posted is much clearer. The posted article reads as if it was just a re-arranged/scrambled word salad of the original article to the point where some parts no longer make sense. The original article makes it clear that while the current figure is 36% for those who have quite a lot of confidence or more in higher education, in 2015, that figure was much higher at 57%. The little to no confidence now is 32%, while in 2015 it was only 10%. https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-educat...

Jtsummers 2y ago

https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-educat... - linked in the first sentence. The poll data itself helps to clarify. It went from 10% answering very little/none to now 32%, and 57% great deal/quite a lot down to 36%. That's a pretty big shift.

amalcon 2y ago

Looks like there is a "some" option. For some reason the author quotes one number from one year, a second from the other, and ignores the third option in both. Ignore "not sure" respondents in polls at your own peril.

Jtsummers 2y ago
The some (there were actually 5 options) line is almost flat: 33, 34, 40, 32. It peaked and then settled back to about 1/3rd of respondents.

TeaBrain 2y ago

It is confusing because the author was really messy with her use of the figures to where that sentence reads nonsensically. The actual Gallup news article that is cited by the article posted is much clearer. The posted article reads as if it was just a re-arranged/scrambled word salad of the original article to the point where some parts no longer make sense. The original article makes it clear that while the current figure is 36% for those who have quite a lot of confidence or more in higher education, in 2015, that figure was much higher at 57%. The little to no confidence now is 32%, while in 2015 it was only 10%. https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-educat...