The worst of the college officials who let pro-Hamas protesters take over are gone (e.g. Claudine Gay of Harvard), but their unwillingness to safeguard their campuses is having effects in the long-run. They have brought the whole college “brand” into disrepute.

In today’s Martin Center article, Grace Hall points to surveys on attitudes toward college, and they are trending down.

She writes:

Parents of college-age students, who often foot the bill, are more and more aware of where their hard-earned money is going, A new study from the higher-ed branding firm SimpsonScarborough indicates that parents (42 percent) are more likely than high-school-aged students (20 percent) to have “high familiarity” with the recent protests, and they tend to have more negative views of them. Nineteen percent of parents versus 10 percent of students now have a “significant[ly]” decreased trust in higher ed — no small portion given the enrollment pressures facing colleges.

There were good reasons for skepticism about the value of many college degrees before the pro-Hamas crowds were allowed a free hand to disrupt campus life, and now there’s one more. The higher education bubble was deflating before, and “leaders” like Claudine Gay have poked another hole in it.