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Seventy percent of respondents to a recent survey said they still want their children or family members to earn some kind of postsecondary credential.
New America
If you ask an American what their opinion of higher education is, an appropriate response would be “It’s complicated.”
In the latest “Varying Degrees” report from New America, a left-leaning think tank, data shows that skepticism about how higher education benefits the country persists, but most Americans agree that college is too costly. However, the majority of Americans still acknowledge the value of earning a postsecondary credential, and more than half think the majority of higher education should be taxpayer funded.
University administrators and consultants say that in many ways the survey’s data—based on a nationally representative sample of 1,705 Americans—is nothing new. Rather, it reinforces a snowballing trend of distrust, propelled by increasing costs and the mainstream media’s negative, broad-brush coverage of state flagships and elite private institutions.
Published in the wake of a similar, shocking survey from Gallup last summer, New America’s data adds to a growing literature that suggests it will take fundamental changes in institutions’ business models, marketing and affordability to change the tide and regain public trust. And experts say it’s going to take support not only from the institutions themselves but also from state and federal lawmakers to make the shift.
Sophie Nguyen, a higher education policy analyst for New America and lead author of the report, said many students and families are trying to hold out hope, but their frustration is mounting. Data from the annual report is a growing concern and needs to be addressed before it’s too late.
“Americans want things to change, but nothing has,” she said. “They want to believe that higher education is a way to get social mobility and financial security in this country. But it no longer feels accessible for a lot of Americans.”
Conflicting Opinions
The decline in the public’s overall confidence has been steady since the survey was first conducted eight years ago, but a majority of respondents still see the value of gaining a postsecondary credential.
Only about a third of Americans (36 percent) think higher education is “fine how it is,” and about three-quarters (73 percent) think it offers a good return on investment. That’s down from 41 percent and 82 percent, respectively, in 2023. The share of Americans who think higher education is having a positive impact on the United States’ trajectory has also plummeted, dropping a total of 16 percentage points over the last five years to just 54 percent.
At the same time, survey results show that more than 70 percent of respondents still want their children or family members to earn some kind of postsecondary credential, whether that be a certificate, associate degree or more. And more than 75 percent think the value of a bachelor’s degree is worth it even if students need to take out a loan to attend.
The data might seem conflicting, but Michael Itzkowitz, co-founder and president of the higher education consulting group HEA, noted, “Two things can be true at once.”
“Most parents still want their children to go to college and see the value in them pursuing a postsecondary education,” he said. “But it’s also clear that they want it to be more affordable, so that they’re not making one of the largest investments of their overall lifetime to do so.”
Higher education is complex and multidimensional, Nguyen noted, and so are the public opinions surrounding it.
“The public confidence in colleges and universities, which the Gallup numbers [and other surveys] represent, is only one dimension of the American perspective for higher education,” she said. “What we have been trying to do with the ‘Varying Degrees’ survey over the years, and especially this year, is to be able to showcase that complexity.”
Addressing Affordability
The key pain point at the heart of these counterintuitive findings is often sticker price, as more than 80 percent of Americans cite total cost of attendance as a significant barrier to pursuing or completing a postsecondary degree.
“They’re simply afraid that they won’t be able to bear the cost,” Itzkowitz said. “And at a time when we need more and more students to be adequately trained to enter the workforce, it’s critical that we address all deterrents so that higher education is accessible.”
But doing that is going to take initiative from policymakers and college officials, he said.
More college outcome data is being collected than ever, but not all of it is being used. When there are programs that aren’t up to snuff, it is crucial that lawmakers hold administrators accountable to figure out what’s not working and why. Is it a stale curriculum that doesn’t produce modern skills, is it a lack of connection between career resource centers and local employers, or could it simply be the continuation of programs that don’t align with the jobs available?
“It’s time to consider how we can more effectively and efficiently use taxpayer dollars to fund higher education pursuits,” Itzkowitz said. And if higher education officials can identify what is working well for students, “That means that they would have more money up front to fund programs that are shown to be beneficial and invest in institutions that provide broad opportunity for students and allow them to succeed within today’s economy.”
New America’s survey also showed that Americans want to see a shift in where college funding comes from to begin with.
When asked who should be more responsible for funding higher education—students, because they personally benefit, or the government, because it’s good for society—56 percent said the government. More specifically, 35 percent said the federal government should bear the brunt of the cost, and 40 percent said the state should be second most responsible.
Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, a private, predominately Black and Hispanic-serving institution in Washington, D.C., noted that some of the public’s concerns about affordability and funding stem from lack of clarity and communication on behalf of the universities.
“The perception that colleges and universities just raise prices without supporting students is just not true for most of us,” she said. But the public doesn’t know that states have disinvested in public higher education and consequently forced institutions to either raise tuition or find support from outside donors, she observed. “Trinity, like many institutions, addresses all of those issues every day, and we’ve been doing it for decades … We expend millions of dollars in grant support for our students. It’s why so many low-income students are able to attend.”
McGuire believes that much of this misunderstanding stems from broad-brush media coverage.
“Popular media report on very few institutions, mostly very elite institutions. And when they report, they mostly only report negative things, such as in the spring of 2024 protest demonstrations,” she said. “Most mainstream media do not report on things like the essential importance of higher education to produce the nation’s skilled professionals.”
Helping the public understand higher education’s role in society, she said, has to start internally.
“We all need to do a better job of communicating to our respective markets that we are here for them, to support them, to make it affordable, to make it flexible and to make it convenient.”
