The Institute's American Civic Literacy Program has been monitoring citizens' knowledge of the basic precepts of American democracy, history, government, and the economy since 2006. Its findings remain consistent:

"Each year, approximately 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 schools nationwide were given a 60-question, multiple-choice exam on basic knowledge of America’s heritage. Both years, the students failed. The average freshman scored 51.7 percent the first year and 51.4 percent the next. The average senior scored 53.2 percent, then 54.2 percent. After all the time, effort, and money spent on college, students emerge no better off in understanding the fundamental features of American self-government."

The Institute's report, Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions, concluded "that particular attitudes about America’s founding documents and principles are highly correlated with a respondent’s level of civic knowledge, suggesting that there may be further relationships between the amount of civic knowledge a student gains while at college and his or her particular beliefs about America’s institutions, beliefs that are formed both before and during the college experience."