In a dramatic shift, Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost
Americans have become embittered over one of the long-standing key ingredients of the American dream.
Nearly two-thirds of registered voters say a four-year college degree isn’t worth it, a dramatic decline over the past decade, according to a new NBC News poll.
Only 33 percent agree that a four-year college degree is “worth it because people have a better chance of getting a good job and making more money over their lifetime,” while 63 percent tend to agree with the concept that “it’s not worth it because people often graduate without specific job skills and with significant debt to pay off.”
In 2017, American adults surveyed were virtually split on the question: 49% said a degree was worth it and 47% said it was not. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53 percent said a degree was worth it and 40 percent said it was not.
This dramatic shift over the past 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and world of education, from exploding tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy – which once again appears poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI.
“It’s simply remarkable to see attitudes on any issue change so dramatically, and especially on a central tenet of the American dream, earning a college degree. Americans once viewed a college degree as aspirational because it offered an opportunity for a better life. And now that promise is truly in doubt,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“What’s really surprising is that everyone has moved. It’s not just people who don’t have a college degree,” Horwitt added.
National data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that those with advanced degrees earn more and have lower unemployment rates than those with lower levels of education. This has been true for years.
But what has changed is the price of a university education. Although tuition prices have declined slightly over the past decade, when adjusted for inflation, College Board data shows that the average inflation-adjusted cost of four-year tuition at public colleges for in-state students has doubled since 1995. Tuition at private four-year colleges has increased 75 percent over the same period.
Respondents who spoke to NBC News all pointed to rising costs as one of the main reasons the value of a four-year degree has been undervalued.
Jacob Kennedy, a 28-year-old waiter and bartender living in Detroit, told NBC News that while he believes “an educated population is the most important thing a country can have,” if people can’t use those degrees because of the debt they carry, it diminishes their value.
Kennedy, who holds a two-year degree, reflected on “the number of people I’ve met working in the service industry who have a four-year degree and who, a year after graduation, immediately quit their ‘adult job’ to return to the job they had.”
“The cost exceeds the value,” he continued. “You go to school with all this student debt – the jobs you get out of college don’t pay off that debt, so you have to find something else that can pay off that debt.”
The 20-point decline over the past 12 years among those who believe a degree is worth it — from 53 percent in 2013 to 33 percent today — is reflected in virtually every demographic group. But the shift in sentiment is particularly striking among Republicans.
In 2013, 55 percent of Republicans said a college degree was worth it, while 38 percent said it wasn’t worth it. In the new poll, only 22 percent of Republicans say the four-year degree is worth it, while 74 percent say it is not.
Democrats also saw a significant change, but not to the same magnitude: a drop from 61 percent saying a degree was worth it in 2013 to 47 percent this year.
During the same period, the composition of the two parties changed, with the Republican Party gaining new and greater support from voters without college degrees, while the Democratic Party attracted more graduates.
It is remarkable that less than half of voters with a university degree consider these degrees worth it: 46% today, compared to 63% in 2013.
Those without a college degree were almost split on the question in 2013. Today, 71% say a four-year degree isn’t worth it, while 26% say it is.
Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said enough fissures have proliferated beneath the long-standing narrative that a college degree always pays to create a serious rift.
“Some people drop out, or sometimes they end up with a degree that’s not worth much in the job market, and sometimes people pay way too much for a degree relative to the value of that degree,” he said. “These cases have created enough exceptions to the rule that a bachelor’s degree always pays, that people are now more skeptical.”
The result is that interest in technical, vocational, and two-year degree programs has exploded.
“I think students are more reluctant to take the risk of getting a degree in four or even two years,” he said. “They are now more interested in any path that could get them into the job market more quickly. »
Josiah Garcia, a 24-year-old living in Virginia, said he recently enrolled in a program to earn a four-year engineering degree after working as an apprentice electrician. He said he was motivated to return to school because he saw the degree as having a direct effect on his future earning potential.
But he added that he didn’t think those seeking other degrees in fields like art or theater could say the same.
“A lot of my friends who went to art or dance school didn’t get the job they thought they could get after they graduated,” he said, arguing that degrees for “soft skills” should be less expensive than those in STEM fields.
Jessica Burns, a 38-year-old Iowa resident with a bachelor’s degree who works for an insurance company, told NBC News that for her, the value of a four-year degree largely depends on the cost.
She went to a community college and then a public school to get her degree, so she said she graduated without having to spend an “insane” amount of money.
But her husband went to a private university to get his degree, and she joked, “We’re going to have student debt for him forever.” »
Burns said she believes a college degree is “essential for a lot of jobs. You won’t get an interview if you don’t have a four-year degree for a lot of jobs in my field.”
But it has defined the value of degrees more in terms of how society perceives them rather than in terms of intrinsic value.
“It’s not valuable because it added a lot of value, it’s valuable because it’s the key to getting in the door,” she said. “Our society needs to understand that if we value it, we need to make it affordable. »
Burns said she believes many more people in her millennial generation are “now saddled with enormous debt, even as successful professionals,” which will influence how her peers approach paying for their children’s college education.
There hasn’t just been a decline in the cost-benefit analysis of a degree. A Gallup poll also finds a marked decline in public trust in higher education over the past decade, although there has been a slight increase over the past year.
“It’s a political problem. It’s also a real problem for higher education. Colleges and universities have lost the connection they had with a large part of the American population, based on affordability,” Horwitt said. “They are now seen as disconnected and inaccessible to many Americans. »
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters Oct. 24-28 via a combination of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
