Words, Public Opinion, and Higher Education

At Gallup, Brandon Busteed and Frank Newport report:

Different words used to describe higher education evoke different confidence ratings among U.S. adults. Americans are considerably more likely to say they have a great deal of confidence in "higher education" than in "colleges and universities." Public confidence in "community colleges" and "postsecondary education" falls between these other two terms.
...
The term colleges and universities in a comparative sense evokes more negative reactions than the broader terms higher education or postsecondary education. Thirty-six percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in higher education, compared with 29% who have a great deal of confidence in postsecondary education and 23% who have a great deal of confidence in colleges and universities. More broadly, these differences persist, but are slightly reduced, when adding in the group of Americans who say they have quite a lot of confidence -- 55% have either a great deal of or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, compared with 45% in colleges and universities.

Gallup also finds a partisan and ideological divide:

Confidence in Four Ways of Describing Postsecondary Education, by Partisanship and Ideology

% Great deal of confidence

	Higher education	Community colleges	Postsecondary education	Colleges and universities
	%	%	%	%
Party ID
Republicans	26	28	25	12
Independents	33	27	28	22
Democrats	50	34	33	37
Ideology
Conservatives	25	28	26	15
Moderates	40	31	29	26
Liberals	45	30	35	28
GALLUP, JAN. 8-28, 2018