It seems as if every day, a survey is released about the declining confidence of the American public in the value of a college degree. A Gallup from September indicated that only 35% of Americans thought a college degree was worth it. This view is aligned with wide-spread disinformation that higher education isn’t effectively preparing students for the workplace. Pundits and political leaders delight in amplifying these views.

Employers, the people who know, disagree! A new study, released last week by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which surveyed over a thousand executives and hiring managers, reveals that 85% of employers believe higher education is doing a good job preparing students for the workplace.

73% of employers believe a college degree is worth the investment. That’s more than double the perception of the general population.

Why the difference? Instead of using social media and listening to propaganda to form their opinions, employers see first-hand that our colleges and universities are responsive to the changing needs of the workforce and preparing their graduates to meet them.

While employers believed job skills and knowledge were the most important goals of a college education, they also felt strongly that civic skill-building and becoming informed citizens were important goals of higher education.

We should all want a workforce that is ethical, informed, able to listen and communicate well, and to be able to work effectively with people different from themselves. Those “soft skills” are the stock and trade of a liberal-arts education. They are also the skills that prepare students to move up in organizations to assume leadership roles.

About a dozen years ago, as American attitudes began to dismiss the liberal arts, a number of universities throughout southeast Asia moved from three-year bachelor’s degrees to a four-year model incorporating those very disciplines. They had found that employees educated with laser-like focus on specific job skills were unable to adapt to an ever-more dynamic world of work.

That nimbleness is needed now more than ever, as the next generation of employees will need to navigate increasing automation, and they will need to become “robot proof” as AI becomes more central to the workplace.

The annual reports on the return on investment of a college degree issued by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce show that the economic benefit of completing a four-year degree has never been greater than it is today, and employers are confirming that American colleges and universities are successfully equipping the newest generation of graduates with the skills to succeed in their first-job destinations. With a liberal-arts foundation they will be ready to grow through a career.