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Public universities are in a perception crisis.
A 2025 Pew survey found 70% of Americans say higher education is heading in the wrong direction. But if your only interactions with universities are through the latest headlines you see, who can blame you?
People are rightfully asking hard questions: What is the purpose of higher education? Where is the return on investment? What are students, taxpayers and communities getting in return? When was the last time my local university improved my life?
These questions are opportunities, not threats.
Higher education leaders have to reframe the conversation around what truly defines success in higher education, not just about research spending, rankings or the number of graduates produced. It’s time we focus on the metric that matters most: community impact.
The University of Nebraska at Omaha recently received the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement, a distinction it has maintained for 20 years. While that recognition is an honor, it’s also a challenge to stay rooted in our mission as a metropolitan university and continue asking: Are we making life better for the people we serve?
That’s the real test. Are we connecting classroom learning to real-world challenges? Are we turning research into action that improves lives? Are we building partnerships that create lasting change for the public good?
Since 2015, our students have completed more than 5,300 community-engaged courses, linking knowledge with experience by embedding with local organizations and employers in ways that build both critical thinking and character. Over 31,000 students have learned not what to think, but how to act with purpose, empathy, skill and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Each interaction is a nonprofit served, a neighborhood uplifted and a business re-energized.
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UNO isn’t the only University of Nebraska campus doing this work. Across our system, you’ll find examples of faculty, staff, and students using their expertise to support economic development, public health, education and workforce innovation in every corner of the state.
But we have to do a better job of telling that story. I will give you one example.
A Nebraska family came to UNO with a medical question no one else had been able to answer. Their child had a rare condition that affected the child’s ability to walk, and they wanted to know what could be done.
UNO faculty in the Biomechanics Research Building welcomed them. They used the university’s Movement Analysis Core, one of the most advanced gait analysis labs in the country, to study the child’s walking patterns. Researchers partnered with local clinicians and students participated in every step, applying what they were learning in real time. And most importantly, the family got life-changing answers.
That’s the kind of public good higher education can deliver when we as students, faculty, staff, and administrators choose to show up, listen and act.
Let’s measure ourselves not just by what we produce, but by what we make possible in the lives of others. We must align our work with the needs of our communities, hold ourselves accountable for delivering results that matter and invite communities to see their universities as a resource that serves them.
To all Nebraskans: ask more of your universities.
Reach out to our faculty with the questions you need answers to. Ask our staff how your organization can benefit from hands-on classwork we call “service-learning.” Let our students bring their knowledge, creativity and passion into your workplace through internships.
When we open our doors and our minds, we turn education into action, research into solutions and campuses into catalysts for community change.
The true value of a university isn’t found in a classroom or a lab. It’s found in the lives we touch, the problems we solve and in the futures we help build together.
Joanne Li is the chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
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