ACTA Releases New Survey on American Students’ Knowledge of U.S. Arts and Sciences

Today, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) releases the second in a series of three annual surveys of American college students. This survey, The Forgotten Fundamentals: An Arts and Sciences Assessment of American College Students,was conducted by College Pulse between April 1, 2025, and April 21, 2025. The survey assessed a sample of 3,215 undergraduate students on their knowledge of American culture, literature, and scientific achievements.

We found:

• Only 52% of American college students know that George Washington resided at Mount Vernon.
• Only 38% of students have read more than five books outside of class in the last year.
• Only 38% of students know that Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible.
• Only one-third of students know that Thomas Edison invented the phonograph.
• Only 30% of students know that Toni Morrison wrote Beloved.
• Seventy-two percent of students do not know that Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.
• Only 25% of students know that Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire.

“The failure to teach American history at institutions of higher education has decimated not only civic knowledge, but also appreciation of America’s cultural heritage,” stated ACTA President Michael Poliakoff. “The revival of a robust liberal arts core curricula would help reverse this disturbing trend. What this survey measured, and what we are all witnessing, is nothing less than the dumbing down of a whole generation, at the very moment when we need our future voters and citizens to be conversant in politics, government, and the wider elements of American civilization. No American student should be able to obtain a bachelor’s degree without a comprehensive grasp of our rich national heritage. This is the collective knowledge that strengthens us as a people.”

In ACTA’s 2024 survey, Losing America’s Memory 2.0, we found that only 31% of students know that James Madison is the Father of the Constitution and only 37% know that John Roberts is the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The 2025 survey uncovers similar deficits in knowledge of America’s arts, sciences, and letters.

For 30 years, ACTA has urged colleges and universities to require a course in American history and government as a condition of graduation. As part of this effort, we recently established a National Commission on American History and Civic Education, comprised of distinguished historians, political scientists, and education leaders. ACTA’s commission will issue a white paper ahead of our nation’s 250^th anniversary in July 2026 to provide crucial guidance on the essential elements of a foundational course in U.S. history.
 
ACTA’s extensive resources on civic education reform include our inaugural 2000 survey Losing America’s Memory; our 2016 report A Crisis in Civic Education; our 2019 survey America’s Knowledge Crisis; and our unique college ratings tool, What Will They Learn?^®, which assesses the core curricula of over 1,100 institutions nationwide.