Dive Brief:
- Only a quarter of adults said having a four-year degree is a “very or extremely” important part of getting a well-paid job, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center.
- Another 35% said a degree is somewhat important. But 40% of those surveyed rated it as “not too or not at all” important.
- Respondents also indicated a decline in the perceived value of college, with 49% saying that a four-year degree is less important to get a well-paying job now than it was two decades ago. About a third, 32%, said it is now more important.
Dive Insight:
Discussion around the value of higher education is increasingly part of the zeitgeist, with prospective students expressing concern that a postsecondary education will leave them saddled with debt.
In a 2023 survey, 57% of 18- to 30-year-olds without a college diploma said that a four-year degree is a good or excellent value. That’s down slightly from 60% in 2022.
The latest polling from Pew shows even starker attitudes.
A little under half of those surveyed, 47%, said the cost of a four-year degree is worth it only if the student does not have to take out loans.
Just 22% said the cost is worthwhile if the student needs to take on debt. And 29% say the cost of college is not worth it, even if a student could graduate without loans. Pollsters interviewed just over 5,200 adults from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3.
Even among college graduates — who typically have better financial outcomes than those with high school diplomas alone — only 32% said college is worth going into debt, Pew found.
Communicating the value of higher education to prospective students, and the public in general, is becoming increasingly important. Colleges are bracing for a predicted drop in high school graduates in 2025, as a result of declining birth rates during the Great Recession.
As tuition costs have soared, economic outcomes for young adults without a college degree are improving, Pew said. Over the past decade, workers ages 25 to 34 who don’t have a degree have seen their wages increase, bucking a decades-long trend.
But men and women experience the workforce differently.
“Since 2014, earnings have risen for young men with some college education and for those whose highest attainment is a high school diploma,” Pew said in its report. “Even so, earnings for these groups remain below where they were in the early 1970s.”
Wages for women of all educational backgrounds have also increased over the past decade. But unlike men, women are now earning more than their ‘70s counterparts when adjusted for inflation. This divergence is largely due to women without college degrees seeing wage increases after decades of pay stagnation, Pew said.
Women continue to earn less than men regardless of their education level, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
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