Education has long been the top priority in the Jewish community, so much so that the Shulchan Aruch, a 16th-century code of Jewish law, famously requires that each Jewish community pay the salary of a teacher to work with its children to learn to read. In contemporary Jewish life in the United States, this priority strongly emerges once again when it comes to continuing one’s education beyond high school to a college or university. American Jews report in numbers notably higher than other faiths and belief systems that it is generally expected that one will attend an institution of higher education. Without a doubt, Jews today exemplify the idea that they are a “people of the book.”

A new national survey of over 5,000 Americans conducted by the Survey Center on American Life demonstrates the centrality of education to Jewish culture with a simple question: Growing up in your family, was it generally expected that you would go on to college?

The results show that while the plurality
of Americans say their families expected them to go to college, many families
simply did not talk about post–high school education at all. Forty-three
percent of respondents stated that they were expected to go on to a four-year
college. At the same time, nearly a third (30 percent) reported that their
families did not spend time talking about educational expectations whatsoever.

As for the Jewish community, a full 80
percent were expected to pursue a degree at a four-year school. Not only is
this figure twice the national average, but it is also far larger than those of
other faiths: Less than half of of Protestants (41 percent) and Catholics (42
percent) report having faced a similar expectation. Among religiously
unaffiliated identifiers, the numbers are higher: Sixty-four percent of atheists
and 58 percent of agnostics report expectations about going to a college or
university. Members of the Mormon/Latter-Day Saints Church, a group that has
shown a significant focus on higher education through Brigham Young University,
are notably lower at just 57 percent.

Turning to age and generation, it is
worth noting that there is a trend of younger Americans having been more encouraged
to attend college than older Americans were. The data demonstrate that just
over a quarter (27 percent) of those in the Silent Generation and a third (35
percent) of baby boomers had families that expected them to attend college. For
those in Gen X, the number increased to 43 percent and for millennials it climbed
to 48 percent. Among Gen Z, the number has jumped to 60 percent.

This general trend of younger generations
being increasingly steered towards higher education is evident across religious
groups as well. In the case of Protestants, 58 percent of millennials or Gen
Zers report college was expected of them, compared to notably lower levels of boomers
(34 percent) and Silents (22 percent). Catholics and Mormons show almost
identical generational trends as well.

Unlike other religious groups, older Jews
are about as likely as younger Jews to say their families expected them to go
to college. Eighty-two percent of boomers note that college was expected of
them. A high number (74 percent) also emerged for Gen Xers, millennials, and
Gen Zers but a bit lower as there are now many viable professional alternatives
to college like coding and various religious academies. But this shows that collegiate
education was and remains a critical value and expectation among those in the
Jewish community.

None of this is to suggest that the American Jewish community is smarter than any other group, or that Jews today prize education more than other people. But there is an undeniable expectation to continue one’s formal education well after high school in the Jewish community, and this deep interest in education may contribute to the high levels of Jewish political engagement and liberalism that are evident today. Whatever the spillover effects, the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks are evident here: Jews are “people whose passion [is] education, whose citadels [are] schools, and whose heroes [are] teachers.”

As the greater
Jewish community and its many philanthropies think about where to invest, these
data make it clear that education remains a core value for American Jews and it
is therefore critical that focus is still strongly paid to collegiate life. From
the BDS movement to a rise in anti-Semitism in general to rampant self-censorship
where Jewish students are regularly afraid to share their views and even ask
questions, supporting and backstopping these students now would go a long way.
The Jewish community embraces higher education like no other group in the nation
and we can better support — through Hillels, Chabad, the Academic Engagement
Network, and a whole host of other institutions — the large number of Jewish
college and university students who regularly feel threatened, silenced, and
disconnected from their schools and campus communities.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

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