“A 2024 survey found that 48 percent of college students believe the Constitution grants the president, rather than Congress, the power to declare war. Only 40 percent could correctly identify the term lengths for members of Congress when posed as a multiple-choice question, and 63 percent failed to identify John G. Roberts Jr. as the chief justice of the United States.”
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“Colleges and universities bear much of the blame. According to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s “What Will They Learn?” survey, only 19 percent of the nation’s institutions of higher education require even a single class on the country’s history and government, a number unchanged since 2012. Only 14 states mandate their public universities to include a civics course in their core curriculum.”
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“Requiring a single college course will not solve the problem of civic literacy alone. But it is an attainable first step. The more trustees, legislators and college leaders treat civic knowledge as an important part of undergraduate education, the better off their students — and the nation as a whole — will be.”
This piece was originally published by The Washington Post on May 21, 2026.
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