Research Brief: Civic Education Needs Reform. But How?

This issue of From the Academy poses a timely question: Will colleges make young people into citizens? On its face, the answer seems obvious. Decades of research and thoughtful commentary support the notion that civic education is essential for sustaining democracy. Since America’s founding, national leaders have emphasized the importance of an “enlightened” or informed citizenry. Given their historical civic missions, institutions of higher education are uniquely positioned to foster the development of informed, engaged citizens.

However, while many colleges have historically prioritized the cultivation of good citizens, mounting evidence demonstrates that they are falling short. In June 2026, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) released its most recent nationwide survey assessing the historical and civic literacy of American college students. The survey reveals that “far too many students are earning college degrees without a rudimentary knowledge of the nation’s history and civic structure.” Findings include:

• Only 45% of students know that the Constitution is the document that established the division of powers between the states and the federal government.
• Only 37% of students know that the legislative branch of the government has the power to declare war.
• Only 26% of students know that the source of the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is the Gettysburg Address.

Perhaps most damning is the finding that 57% of students indicated that they would flee the United States if it were invaded by Russia. 

Building on ACTA’s extensive past work—including Losing America’s Memory 2.0 (2024), No U.S. History? (2021), America’s Knowledge Crisis (2019), A Crisis in Civic Education (2016), and Losing America’s Memory (2000)—this latest survey, taken alongside other research and news coverage, underscores a truth that From the Academy readers and Martin Center supporters have known for a while now: American civic education needs serious reform. 

But how do we go about it? 

Over the past few years, multiple studies, essays, and reports have sought to identify and promote ways to remedy civic illiteracy. In 2025, the Martin Center released a report comparing the quality of civic education across all 50 states and offering recommendations for reform, ranging from “teaching civics to future teachers” to “implementing a College Civics Literacy test as a prerequisite for graduation.” One key takeaway from the report is that “[most] states do not require civics in their colleges’ general education programs.” Consistent with other organizations, the Martin Center recommends that colleges integrate a “robust civics course” into their curricula.

Like the Martin Center’s report, contemporary higher education reform has increasingly focused on tackling civic illiteracy through structured, institutionalized civics education. In a forum published by Law & Liberty in 2024, four leading reform voices address one approach that has gained considerable attention and traction: the establishment of independent Civic Thought and Leadership institutes. Paul O. Carrese, founding director of Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL), opened the forum by arguing that such academic units or centers, equipped with their own tenure lines and degrees, can “restore genuine liberal education and the higher mission of our universities while resisting the pull of endemic ideological advocacy.” He pointed to SCETL as the catalyst behind other civic institutes that have popped up at other public universities in eight states. (ACTA’s American Lyceum Initiative tracks that growing movement here.) 

“Leadership preparation is a role that elite private institutions long have claimed,” Carrese wrote. He urges university administrators, trustees, and donors to “join a national-consensus effort to redress the higher education crisis by renewing the truth-seeking mission, with its commitment to civil disagreement” and an eye toward “our polity’s common good.” 

The three other forum contributors—James Hankins of the University of Florida, J. Michael Hoffpauir of the University of Austin, and Michael B. Poliakoff of ACTA—endorsed Carrese’s general reform approach and offered their insight on how it can succeed. Hankins advised that civic centers must obtain, and maintain, control over their faculty appointments, curricula, and funding to avoid administrative sabotage and mitigate criticism of undue outside influence. Hoffpauir argued that civic institutes, and their respective colleges, must embrace civic virtues of intellectual humility, intellectual courage, free expression, civil discourse, justice, and responsibility to restore higher education’s core mission, namely the discovery and dissemination of knowledge.

Poliakoff asserted that independent civic centers like ASU’s SCETL can be major engines for urgent curricular reform. When backed by legislative mandates–such as South Carolina’s REACH Act and similar bills in North Carolina and Ohio–civic centers can “take up the onerous, but crucial leadership in designing and providing the [foundational] course that will introduce college students to the American story.” 

“All four of us agree that the illiberal turn in higher education has deeply damaged higher learning and American civic culture,” Carrese noted. “The vast majority of higher education’s graduates are steeped in a cocktail of civic ignorance or civic apathy, but even the subsets of the engaged minority are defined mostly by angry polarization.” He cites several recent publications that deserve close reading and application in civic education reform, including works by Richard Haass, Steven B. Smith, and Ronald J. Daniels et al.

Carrese also highlighted ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education, describing it as “an even greater civic and educational service.” Launched in 2024, the Commission consists of 24 distinguished historians, political scientists, and education leaders dedicated to remedying the “long-standing failure of American colleges and universities to require a foundational course in U.S. history and government.” The Commission’s 2026 report calls for the “restoration of a requirement that every college student complete a rigorous, semester long course on the American story.” It explains in depth why such a measure matters and how such a course might be structured to enhance student learning. It recommends that professors “give students opportunities to reflect on the defining events in American history in exciting ways,” including through immersive, civil debate and dialogue grounded in historical texts. Curricular tools designed by groups like ACTA’s College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance align well with civic education and the cultivation of informed, engaged citizens. 

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences calls for a curricular approach in its own 2026 report. In his introductory letter, American Academy President Laurie L. Patton states that “[most] leaders [now] understand preparation for democratic citizenship to be central to the durable skills that make their students employable in both the public and private sectors.” Even so, he claims that emerging civic centers are good but insufficient measures to “make civic learning itself durable.” 

The report encourages higher education leaders to integrate civic learning into every academic major/field—including STEM and professional schools—rather than treat it as part of a general education requirement checklist. It provides case studies of campus practices that serve as “blueprints for how higher education can help democracy last,” including strategies such as fostering skills in discussion and listening.  

Taken together, these reports and insights align with the Hoover Institution’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions’ 2025 report. Based on extensive surveys, interviews, and focus groups, the report finds that higher education leaders, faculty, and students “overwhelmingly agree that civic learning should transcend partisanship and emphasize pluralism, dialogue across differences, and shared democratic commitments.” 

It observes that “[educators] need support navigating difficult topics and conversations” that “[better] assessment and research are needed,” and that “[no] single institution can address the challenges of strengthening civics alone.” It calls on “organizations, educators, and civic leaders to engage with these findings, explore synergies, and consider how best to work collectively toward shared goals,” tapping into each other’s expertise and capacities to prepare and equip the rising generation of American citizens.

Bottom line: Can colleges make young people into citizens? Yes, provided they make civic education a substantive, required part of the college experience. Will they? For the sake of our democratic republic and the next 250 years, we must see that they do.