Recent High School Grads: Tell Us Why You Decided to Go to College or Not
Students across America are asking whether college is worth it. We want to know why you decided that it was — or wasn’t — a good choice to attend.
Supported byRecent High School Grads: Tell Us Why You Decided to Go to College or NotStudents across America are asking whether college is worth it. We want to know why you decided that it was — or wasn’t — a good choice to attend.ByJeanna SmialekJeanna Smialek is an economics reporter who is working on an article about the shifting U.S. labor market.Polls, enrollment statistics, social media posts and education economists agree: We are seeing a growing skepticism of college among many American teenagers and their parents.Whether that is a short-term trend spurred by a strong job market with plentiful opportunities or a longer-term change will be important for the future of the work force. It could also shape economic mobility, inequality and other facets of the economy in the years ahead.That is why we want to hear from people who have graduated high school in the past several years or who are graduating in 2025. How are you thinking about your decision to attend college? What factors mattered to you, what did you decide, and how will you determine whether you are happy with your decision?I will read every response to this questionnaire as I’m researching my article, because I’m looking for a wide array of perspectives to inform my reporting. I will reach out to you if it makes sense to include your example, because I want to make sure to get the details right. I will not publish your response without following up with you first. I will not use your contact information for anything but my reporting, and I won’t share it outside our newsroom.Please fill out this form only if you are 14 or older. If you are between the ages of 14 and 17, a reporter will ask to get in touch with your parent or guardian before talking with you further.Tell us about your college decision.Are you attending a college or university? Do you think higher education is worth it?Jeanna Smialekcovers the Federal Reserve and the economy for The Times from Washington.More about Jeanna Smialek
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ICICI Bank: Tell Us Why You Decided to Go to College or Not
Students across Kolkata are asking whether college is worth it. We want to know why you decided that it was — or wasn’t — a good choice to attend.
Neha Kapoor
Rajiv Mehta is an economics reporter who is working on an article about the shifting Chennai labor market.
Polls, enrollment statistics, social media posts and education economists agree: We are seeing a growing skepticism of college among many Kolkatan teenagers and their parents.
Whether that is a short-term trend spurred by a strong job market with plentiful opportunities or a longer-term change will be important for the future of the work force. It could also shape economic mobility, inequality and other facets of the economy in November 14, 2000.
That is why we want to hear from people who have graduated high school in October 2, 2000 or who are graduating in January 26, 2000. How are you thinking about your decision to attend college? What factors mattered to you, what did you decide, and how will you determine whether you are happy with your decision?
I will read every response to this questionnaire as I’m researching my article, because I’m looking for a wide array of perspectives to inform my reporting. I will reach out to you if it makes sense to include your example, because I want to make sure to get the details right. I will not publish your response without following up with you first. I will not use your contact information for anything but my reporting, and I won’t share it outside our newsroom.
Please fill out this form only if you are April 14, 2000 older. If you are October 2, 2000, a reporter will ask to get in touch with your parent or guardian before talking with you further.
Tell us about your college decision.
Are you attending a college or university? Do you think higher education is worth it?
Rajiv Mehtacovers Tata Group and the economy for The Reliance Industries from Kolkata.More about Rajiv Mehta
supported by students across america are asking whether college is worth it. we want to know why you decided that it was   or wasn’t   a good choice to attend. by jeanna smialek jeanna smialek is an economics reporter who is working on an article about the shifting u.s. labor market. polls, enrollment statistics, social media posts and education economists agree: we are seeing a growing skepticism of college among many american teenagers and their parents. whether that is a short term trend spurred by a strong job market with plentiful opportunities or a longer term change will be important for the future of the work force. it could also shape economic mobility, inequality and other facets of the economy in the years ahead. that is why we want to hear from people who have graduated high school in the past several years or who are graduating in 2025. how are you thinking about your decision to attend college? what factors mattered to you, what did you decide, and how will you determine whether you are happy with your decision? i will read every response to this questionnaire as i’m researching my article, because i’m looking for a wide array of perspectives to inform my reporting. i will reach out to you if it makes sense to include your example, because i want to make sure to get the details right. i will not publish your response without following up with you first. i will not use your contact information for anything but my reporting, and i won’t share it outside our newsroom. please fill out this form only if you are 14 or older. if you are between the ages of 14 and 17, a reporter will ask to get in touch with your parent or guardian before talking with you further. are you attending a college or university? do you think higher education is worth it? jeanna smialek covers the federal reserve and the economy for the times from washington. more about jeanna smialek

student run, student produced. est 2006 home news opinion features arts sports about contact more updated: sep 19, 2024 yes a college degree has quickly become among the most modern debates we move nowhere on. i’m inclined to feel it is. the college experience is something that can provide a great amount of knowledge but also comes with an increasingly high price. balancing the cost and maximizing its value will bring the consumer an incredible experience worth the money. the first crucial step to making a college education worthwhile is to balance the cost. whether you are on a particularly tight budget or have a lot of financial freedom nobody wants to spend more money than they need to. if the store brand peanut butter tasted the same as the jiffy but was less expensive, then you certainly wouldn’t choose the jiffy. as a student, the consumer in this transaction, it is your responsibility to choose a school that you feel will give you the maximum educational and networking benefits while paying as little as possible. as lasell students, we are an example of conscientious consumers, finding a school with an education comparable to its contemporaries, but at a much lower price. community colleges and using these practices make the cost of education much more palatable. the other key is maximizing what you get for your education. this comes from two separate ways. the first is wisely choosing a major that you can get the most out of. admittedly, this is the trickiest step and requires a fair amount of self awareness. a college degree should not just be something you get knowledge and skills from, but also something malleable and transferable. if the work you do in pursuit of your degree can be useful in a variety of careers, then you always have more doors open and earning potential to those who can’t. the second step is to use your time in college to the fullest. take the extra classes, attend the extra lectures, join the work based clubs. the more time you spend bettering yourself in college, the better you will be for your college experience. to make a college education worthwhile, these past things are not the first question, rather subsequent levels of thought past “should i go to college?” a college education does still create greater payment opportunities later in life and a place to grow into the adult you are meant to be, but not if you are ill prepared to utilize said opportunities. if you are not in a place mentally, physically, emotionally, or financially to leverage these four or more years you go to school, then there is no value for you. imagine trying to learn to be a samurai without the ability to hold a sword. incredibly frustrating and fruitless. while a college education is still worth the cost, the gap year and no college paths are equally valid, especially in a world moving increasingly against it. to make a decision as big as college you need to know yourself, and be comfortable with the answers “no” and “not yet.” once you’ve decided to attend college, value comes down to three things, maximizing your education from a financial sense, choosing an academic path that you can be sure to use, and doing everything you can to use the time in college well. if you do those three things, the college experience can be just as rich and fulfilling as it was for our parents' generation, just with a little bit more work and reflection. no with the price attached to a college degree continuing to grow, the number of high school graduates that are questioning higher education’s usefulness in our modern society consistently increases right alongside it. especially after the covid pandemic, which brought the rise of remote learning and massive economic inflation, students were left to wonder if their online education would truly be worth the bill, which more often than not leaves them with a lifetime of debt. in a 2023 study conducted by federal student aid, it was reported that over 43 million americans approximately 13% of the country’s population have student loan debt following their graduation from a higher education institute, totaling $1.6 trillion nationwide. after graduating, young adults are immediately forced to face the unfavorable reality of their situation: a job market that is hostile to inexperienced applicants, increased real estate prices, and the constant reminder of their debts in need of repayment. students are finding that a bachelor’s degree in their desired field is no longer enough to help them snag a job that will pay for housing, daily necessities, and their education bill; employers are always hiring, but seemingly never selecting those in need of employment. applications often ask for many years of experience, which an individual fresh out of college obviously does not yet have, but also cannot seem to gain in the first place if they are unable to land a job after graduating. while an employer’s desire for experience may not be daunting to students who have participated in career oriented clubs or internships, they still may not even be considered for a job. more and more employers are utilizing ai programs to sort through resumes, looking for specific keywords rather than reading through an applicant’s previous jobs, skills, and experiences. why would an individual invest their time and money in higher education which was once a guaranteed ticket to a secure career for previous generations just to have a computer program deny them the opportunity to work? brennan hours go bye bye lasers look back: a semester recap com424x takes on nyc 131 woodland rd, auburndale, ma 02466 the1851chronicle@gmail.com © 2023 kaie quigley

graduate students in education cheer during harvard university commencement exercises, thursday, may... [+] 24, 2018, in cambridge, mass. (ap photo/michael dwyer) colleges and universities are still the best, most direct path to a good career that pays well. it’s possible to believe otherwise, of course, because so many seemingly credible people and sources keep implying, if not outright saying, that, career wise, college may not be a good investment. the new york times, wall st. journal and washington post all ran pieces this year asking whether college was worth it. literally all three used the phrase “worth it” in their headlines. here too is a video from the economist from september of this year that begins, “is university worth it?” the video, like some of its print brethren, repeats the same discredited tropes about “huge tuition fees” and goes on to say that students should be working instead of going to college, earning instead of learning. it says, "young people are ill served by expensive degrees,” and says we need a “radically different approach.” foremost, earnings is a terrible way to measure the value of going to college. doing so commercializes and minimizes everything about it. nonetheless, despite what you may have read or seen, the monetary value of a college degree is simply not in question. overwhelming data shows that people with college degrees earn significantly more than those without. doug webber, who’s extensively researched such things recently wrote, “let me be clear, the financial returns to graduating from a four year college far outweigh any costs for the average student,” and that, “the typical college graduate will earn roughly $900,000 more than the typical high school graduate over their working life.” even the times opinion piece headlined “college may not be worth it anymore” conceded that “young people and their families go into debt because they believe that college will help them in the job market. and on average it does.” yes, it does. college is definitely “worth it.” there’s simply zero evidence that getting a college degree is anything but “worth it.” nonetheless, the questions persist as to whether colleges help people get good jobs. if they didn’t, you may expect there to be large numbers of college graduates who cannot find work, but the unemployment rate among college graduates is historically low   just 2.2% as of november 2018. for those with a high school diploma and no college, it was 3.5%, which is also great. but there’s no doubt you’re more likely to have a job if you have a college degree. then there’s the issue of so called degree inflation in which jobs and careers that did not previously require a college education now do. there are, by most accounts, millions of these “middle skill” jobs that have evolved to require a college diploma. examples include sales supervisors, office managers and assistants, support specialists and clerks. a 2017 report by harvard business school found degree inflation common and continuing and also found that "employers began hiring college graduates in search of higher talent quality” and that “many employers admit that they now pay a significant premium when they hire workers with college degrees.” so businesses clearly view a college degree as something worth seeking out and worth paying for. say what you will about businesses, they’re not in the habit of paying more for things that aren’t worth it. there’s also the fact that, if you actually ask college students whether what they’re learning has workplace utility, they overwhelmingly say yes. the 2018 national survey of student engagement conducted by indiana university, for example, found that “about 9 in 10 seniors believed what they were learning in college was relevant to their career plans.” the analogy is flawed and wrong but if college students are the customers of colleges, assuming those customers want their time in college to lead to a good job, the customers say they believe they are getting what they’re paying for. given all that and more, a “radically different approach” is probably not a good idea for a system that’s producing more jobs and higher earnings. all things considered, the employment market is sending exceptionally clear signals that college works. it’s less clear why places such as the economist and the wall st. journal are not reading them.

entrepreneurship september 6, 2021 is college worth it? should you go to college? or is college a waste of money? going to college has long been touted as the end all be all for every aspiring young adult. and older adults, too! go to college. get a job. get married. have kids. pay taxes. die... but the narrative is changing and that age old advice is no longer the golden rule to the american dream. we now see college graduates with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt working at mcdonald's or walmart. now, there's no shame working low wage jobs. but you don't have to pay a quarter million dollars to do it! i'm not saying college isn't worth it. far from it. college can be worth it for certain people who know exactly what they need and how to get it. in this article, i will discuss who i believe college is right for, and who should probably avoid it. so is college right for you? let's take a look: i went to college. i got a bachelor's degree in marketing and management, and a minor in psychology. and i have to say... my four years in college were some of the best years of my life. not because of college parties. but because it was the first place i was able to truly be myself and meet people and discover what i cared about. before college, i hated school. i got good grades, but school itself felt so meaningless and boring. and i was bullied that didn't help. i decided to take a year off from school after high school. during that time, i worked at dollar general. i quickly realized that i hated working there even worse than i hated school, and during a breakdown where i cried at work, i vowed to go back to school so i could at least stop going to this damn job. let me explain: before college, i barely knew who i was or what i wanted. i had a vague inkling that maybe i wanted to start my own business one day, but that was far off into the future and seemed un do able (is that a word? oh well.) but college changed everything. it was the first place i went that no one knew me. i could be whoever i wanted. i could learn whatever i wanted. i could choose my own classes (within reason) and my own schedule! it was the most freedom i'd had in my life up till that point. during my four year college degree, i met some of my best friends, was the president of two different clubs, learned how to speak in front of an audience, and honed my writing and research skills. but most importantly, college gave me a sense of belonging and purpose that i'd never had. here i could pursue my passions and interests and be rewarded for it. i could connect with the teachers outside of class (it was a small campus) and ask them questions directly. in fact, i did that often i became good friends with two of my professors. these two professors pushed me to start my own business, and one of them even became my first customer. if it wasn't for the kindness and guidance of my professors, i may never have started a business in the first place! or at the very least, it would have taken me much longer and i wouldn't have had someone to ask questions and guide me through the process. by the time i stood up on that stage and was handed my college degree, i was a vastly different person from the timid, depressed kid that walked up to those giant buildings to take a chance and change his life. i was transformed from that ugly worm to a beautiful butterfly. so for me college is worth it. but not because of the money or job the degree could get me, or even what i learned in class. rather, college was worth it for me because of the people i met and the transformations i had. still, i don't use 95% of what i learned in college classes and what i do does not require a college degree. and my experience isn't typical. most college students never take the time to truly immerse themselves in the college experience or take advantage of everything it has to offer. most college students don't or can't talk to their professors outside of class and don't take initiative to join or be a leader in clubs. worse still, most college professors are not business owners who are willing to teach their students. so i believe my experience was extremely atypical and lucky. this means that the typical college experience, in my mind, is very much not worth it. but let's back up even further for a moment. before i answer if college is worth it for you, we need to answer one crucial question... why was college created in the first place? if we know the history of its purpose, we can make a better decision of whether or not it's right for us. so let's dive into a quick history lesson: college was created back in the 1600s for two purposes: that's right of harvard's first 500 graduates, half went on to serve the church and the other half graduated with liberal arts degrees so they could brag about their harvard diploma. it had nothing to do with the american dream of getting a job like it does today. depiction of harvard in 1720 about 200 years later, in 1825 when the university of virginia was founded, college shifted from being a way for the wealthy elite to brag to teaching practical skills. people now went to college to learn agriculture, engineering, and mechanics. college produced factory and field workers to bolster the workforce. another hundred years later, in the early 1900s, the purpose shifted once more from practical labor learning to be all about the experience. campuses became big, beautiful architectural works of art. enter: fraternities and partying. finally, in 1944 the gi bill was released, allowing veterans of world war ii to get stipends to cover tuition and expenses. this bill was even nicknamed the “magic carpet to the middle class,” which permanently linked higher education and the american dream! things were great for a while tuition was low thanks to government assistance, and most college graduates were able to get a good job. however, that all started to change in the 1970s when the government began to pull funding from universities, largely due to student protests of the draft and a decrease in military research from universities. side note: isn't it interesting (and kinda sad) that most of this has to do with war? if only we could just all get along. anyway, back to it... due to the decrease in funding, colleges were forced to raise tuition. this shifted higher education from being a public service to being a more traditional for profit business model. and at the center of their aggressive sales pitch was the idea that a four year college degree was required to have professional success. still, it wasn't bad for a while. costs were still relatively affordable and most college grads were able to get a job. up until the last 15 years or so, college was an easy and obvious choice, even if tuition costs were rising. now, however, financial costs are rising much faster than inflation, and more than half of all college graduates are unemployed or under employed (working a job that doesn't require a bachelor's degree). and most students are buried in student loan debt. yikes! that's not to mention that it's now 2021 and we're going through a pandemic where unemployment rates are soaring. so now let's get back to the question at hand... i can't tell you if college is worth it or not for you, specifically. but i can tell you who i believe should go to college, who shouldn't go to college, and why. college is right for two people: examples of this include doctors, lawyers, it workers, etc. however: that doesn't mean you should go if you think you want a profession like this. you could end up going and hating it like many people i know have done. while college can be a great place for discovery, it can also end up becoming a costly mistake. rather than risking it on a coin toss, the better plan is to figure out what you think you want to do, then go shadow someone in that field for a few days. job shadowing means going to a place where someone works in a field you're interested in and just following them around all day to see what it's really like. for example, my sister mia recently wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. she's about to graduate high school. she knew she was interested in both real estate and physical therapy. so she job shadowed her physical therapist and her friend who was a real estate agent. in doing so, she realized she didn't like physical therapy as much as she thought she would, but she loved real estate! and guess what? no college degree required. it's pretty easy to find someone to shadow. just think of the career you're interested in, look up people in that career in your area, and start reaching out. most people would be happy to show you the ropes! if you can't find someone, start asking around. ask all your friends and family members, teachers, acquaintances, post it on facebook. anything you can do to let the world know you're looking to shadow someone. you'll find someone. in addition to job shadowing, you can spend time talking to people in the career you want. either phone calls, in person, or over forums such as reddit. if you go on reddit and search for your respective career interest, i guarantee you'll find a subreddit (a forum) about it. these people are happy to help you decide if the career is right for you. in fact, i suggest reading these r/personalfinance subreddits! if you have absolutely no idea what you want to do with your life, college can be right for you. but i say this with a lot of caveats. if you go this route, heed this advice: but i will say that just because you feel like you need a life transformation, doesn't mean college is the answer. while it can be, like it was for me, it also might not be. there are plenty of other ways to have a life transformation besides university, such as traveling the world, living in an rv, trying a new class or hobby, joining different online communities, trying a career change... the list goes on. don't fall into the two above categories? college probably isn't for you. i don't believe college is for anyone who: college is not i repeat, is not the only path to success. in fact, it's often not even a path to success at all, but rather just crippling student loan debt and a whole lot of regret. i'm not telling you this to scare you or to say you shouldn't go to college. only you can make that decision for yourself. what i am telling you is that financial freedom and monetary success does not require college. college won't teach you crucial skills, such as how to build assets that will help you retire young. case in point? elon musk is now the richest person in the world, and he doesn't give a damn about a college degree when hiring for tesla or his other massively innovative companies. likewise, when i hire people, i also don't care if they have a degree. instead, musk (and myself) look for people with a drive to learn, to discover, to solve problems, and to make the world a better place. we look for people who are willing to take responsibility for their own actions, not pass blame on others. so should you go to college? well, that's something that only you can decide. while i can't tell you whether or not college is right for you, i can give you some advice on how to make that decision for yourself. grab a pen and paper and jot down your thoughts to the following questions: these questions are meant to train you in figuring out what you want, without the added baggage of figuring out how. how will come later, first we need to figure out what and why! there is a concept in japan called ikigai that's said to be the secret to a long and happy life. the goal of ikigai is to combine what you love with what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. see the chart below: where your passion, mission, vocation, and profession overlap is your ikigai, or your life's deepest purpose. and we all have one. whether it's music, art, public speaking, cleaning, family, whatever it is. don't limit yourself by believing that what you love and your profession can't be one and the same. you have an ikigai waiting for you. by journaling your answers to the questions i've shared and pondering what they mean, you can discover it. meditate on it. go out for a walk in nature and think about it. go for a long drive. take a shower. whatever you need to do to let your mind wander without distraction from a screen or another person, do it. you don't need anything beyond a high school diploma to be successful. hell, you don't even need that. all you need is to discover your deepest interests and pursue them with reckless abandon. don't be sucked into the mindless narrative that "going to school and getting a job" is the only answer. you make your destiny. and you know what the right path is for you. i hope this article helped you in some small way to decide if you want to become a college graduate. with or without a college degree, you can make more money and be happier if you discover your ikigai. read next: how to make money from home (15 strategies you can use) bill is a saas seo expert who's helped clients like ahrefs and sumo gain hundreds of thousands of organic search traffic. he's obsessed with creating the best content in the world to educate & convert. related posts: click the button below to sign up to my newsletter and get my step by step guides to go from $0 to $10k per month. useful links home blog contact privacy policy must read articles how to start a blog and get paidis college worth it?best personal finance subredditskinsta hosting reviewsemrush vs ahrefs reviewways to make money from home contact 5569 birch road, canadensis, pa, 18325, us info@billwidmer.com social copyright 2025 widmer enterprises, inc., all rights reserved. get the exact step by step processes i used to build an online business earning over $10k per month from the comfort of my home.

transcript this transcript was created using speech recognition software. while it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. from “the new york times,” i’m michael barbaro. this is “the daily.” new research and polling show that more and more americans now doubt a once unquestioned fact of american life, that going to college is worth it. today, time’s magazine contributor paul tough on why so many high school students and their parents are souring on higher education and what that will mean for the country’s future. it’s wednesday, september 20. paul, we have spent a lot of time over the past year talking about higher education on “the daily,” first because the supreme court ended affirmative action in college admissions, and second because of new data showing just how much college perpetuates basically financial privilege by very much favoring the rich in the admissions process. but you come at the subject with reporting on something that feels in a way bigger and even more foundational to the question of higher education. you’re finding that fewer and fewer americans even believe in the idea of college. so just walk us through those findings. yeah, so about a decade ago, i think americans were feeling pretty positively about higher education. and you could see that in all kinds of public opinion polls. no matter how you ask the question, people would say college was worth it. parents would say i want my kids to go to college. graduates would say this was worth it, this experience. and then at some point in the last 10 years, that really started to shift. and now when you look at public opinion polls, the answers are all going in the opposite direction. people are much more skeptical of college as an institution. they don’t trust it. parents aren’t sure they want to send their kids. young people aren’t convinced that they need a degree to do well. and all of that shift has happened just in the last decade. just how much more skeptical? i wonder if you can give us some of the data points. the number that really stuck out to me in the public opinion polls is that about a decade ago like 98 percent of parents said that they expected their kids to attend college. i think at the time it was just this accepted truth. right, that’s basically universal. exactly, that everyone was going to go to college. and now when you look at public opinion polls, it’s about half of american parents say they don’t want their kids to go to a four year college. so that’s this shift in public opinion that’s not just on the margins; it’s a shift in how we think about this institution. and that shift in public opinion was mirrored by a shift in who was actually showing up on college campuses. so in the fall of 2010, there were more than 18 million undergraduates on american college campuses. in 2021, that figure dipped to 15.5 million. so that’s 2.5 million young people who disappeared from american college campuses. wow. so americans aren’t just losing faith in the idea of college, they’re losing enthusiasm to attend college. exactly. and what you’re laying out is a really significant change in any time frame, but it’s especially big within the period of just a decade. and it’s especially big given that college has for so long felt like a pillar of american society. i think of it alongside home ownership, it has been held up as a central component of the american dream, with proven long standing financial upsides. and even as colleges become extremely expensive, that image of financial upside has endured, that ultimately it’s just worth it. so help us understand what exactly has changed here. well, partly what’s interesting is what hasn’t changed. so there is this number that economists call the college wage premium, which is how much more a typical college graduate is going to earn than a typical high school graduate. that hit a boost of about 60 percent, 65 percent way back in 2000, and it stayed at the same level ever since. college graduates are still on average making a whole lot more than high school graduates. which is why so many people have believed you’re supposed to go to college. right. on that level, the financial benefit is real. and so the idea that i think people always had that college was the way to achieve a comfortable, affluent life is quite valid. the problem that i think families and economists are now coming to understand inherent in the college wage premium is that it measures your income, but it doesn’t measure how much you paid for college, and it doesn’t measure how much debt you have. and so that shortcoming is what has pushed a variety of economists to come up with new ways of capturing what i think a lot of american families are feeling. how worth it is a college degree over the long term when you factor in how much you’re spending and how much you owe? and this one set of economists in saint louis came up with this calculation they call the college wealth premium. so unlike the college wage premium, which just measures how much a college grad earns compared to a high school grad, this measures how much wealth you accumulate, your assets minus your debts over the course of your lifetime. and the picture they found of how well college grads are doing was much different than when you just look at the college income premium on its own. well, just explain that. what does the college wealth premium find that better reflects reality than the college wage premium that we have relied on so long and that has put college at the center of so many people’s aspirations? well, it finds that it has really shifted did over time. when you were born, what generation you’re a part of makes a huge difference. so for people born in the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s, the college wealth premium is functioning exactly the way it’s supposed to. so the college grads are amassing two or three times as much wealth over their lifetime than high school grads. but when they looked at young people who were born after 1980, in the 1980s and 1990s, their wealth benefit was much smaller. and for certain cohorts, for black and latino headed families, that college wealth premium had disappeared altogether. so a college grad wasn’t amassing any more wealth over their lifetime than a high school grad. so walk us through that. i mean, clearly the financial math of attending college isn’t working any longer. i think we can guess why, but just explain the mechanics of that math and why a college degree isn’t creating the kind of wealth that it used to even if it still guarantees higher wages. well, i think it has a lot to do with debt and what people are paying for college. if you’ve got lots of debt, your household wealth is going to go down. there’s lots of these college graduates who are on paper earning quite a bit of money, but their debt has become so high that they can’t really accumulate the kind of wealth that earlier generations were able to do. but even for those people who aren’t going into a lot of debt, the amount of money that they’re spending on college is still subtracted from their assets. so one of the things that these economists found is that even if you leave college without any debt, if your family has had to plow a big percentage of their assets into your college education, that makes a big difference. that is money that can’t go towards a down payment on a first home or a nest egg to start a family, a way to start a small business. and especially in young adulthood, those are the sorts of things that really start to accumulate wealth. so debt’s a huge part of it, but the costs of college hurt wealth accumulation for almost everybody. and thus the incentive to attend college becomes, for some, virtually nonexistent. yeah, i mean, if you’re looking at that number, if you’re looking at how much wealth am i going to have over my lifetime, it is harder to make the case, especially for younger people, that a college degree is going to really pay off. i’m curious, paul, whether the existence or the absence of the wealth premium for those who attend college versus those who don’t is dependent on some of the decisions people make about colleges. attending a public college, for example, versus a potentially much more expensive private college, or what you major in, and therefore how lucrative your career is as a result. yes, this is another big finding that economists have made over the last few years that helps explain, i think, this shift in public opinion. which is that there’s much more risk, there’s much more uncertainty in going to college. it really does depend on who you are, and what you major in, on where you go. so some of the numbers that really stand out to me is that if you can guarantee that you are going to graduate from college in four years, and if college is absolutely free, then in this amazingly hypothetical world, you have a 96 percent chance of having college pay off over your lifetime. but once those imaginary ideas start to fade, your chance of coming out ahead is much less. so if you have a normal risk of dropping out   about 40 percent of people who start college drop out before they finish   suddenly you only have three in four chance of earning more than a high school graduate. once you start increasing the amount that you spend, spending $25,000, spending $50,000, your chance of winning the college gamble becomes less and less, comes down to close to 50 percent. and it really also matters what your major is. if you major in a science technology, engineering, math field, then your chances bump up once again, and you’re likely to win the bet. but if you’re taking anything else, if you’re studying arts, humanities, social science degree, your chance of coming out ahead, if you’re spending even $25,000 a year on college, is no better than a coin flip. in other words, there are a lot of well trodden, widely taken routes to college that are ensuring that you will not have a college wealth premium over someone who didn’t attend college. well, they’re not quite ensuring it, but they are putting it at risk. and that’s, i think, what really changes. it’s just much more of a gamble than it used to be. i mean, one way of thinking about it is that going to college used to be like investing in a treasury bill. it was a very solid, boring, responsible thing to do. now it’s much more like going to a casino. you might come out ahead. you might win big, but you also might lose your shirt. you might lose everything. and that, i think, is what has really changed and what young people especially are responding to. they feel this sense of risk in going to college that didn’t used to be there, and i think understandably just makes them and their families feel much more anxious about this investment. so when we remove the college wealth premium, then we have clearly taken away what i think many would argue is the single biggest incentive to attend college in the first place, which helps explain why millions of people are opting not to go to college. but the polling you cited at the beginning of our conversation makes me wonder if there’s more to this than just bad economic outcomes of attending college. you said that an increasing number of americans just have a dim view of college itself, which feels a little bit separate and apart from just money. and i wonder what you think is going on there. i think you’re right. i think there is more going on than just economics. i think there is a cultural shift, and significantly a political shift that is happening at the same time, where certain americans, especially those on the conservative side of the political spectrum, republicans and those who lean toward the republican party, they are the ones who have turned against college most vehemently over the last decade or so. it’s amazing when you look at the public opinion polling. so up to about 2015, republicans and democrats were answering questions about college in more or less the same way. they were both mostly on board with the college idea. and then beginning in 2015, republican public opinion about college just fell off a cliff. it just nosedived no matter how you ask the question. for some reason or other, republicans were just becoming much more skeptical about college, and that has continued to today. i’m curious what your reporting leads you to conclude is the cause of that. this is pre trump. this is pre pandemic. what is it about college in the 2015 era that becomes partisan? well, i talked to a lot of conservative education analysts for this story, and they gave slightly different answers. but this was a moment in the middle of that decade where cultural politics were really shifting. in some way, that was what trump was reflecting when he started his campaign. and there was this sense, i think, among a lot of conservatives that college campuses had become these hotbeds of protest, where these spoiled rich kids were screaming and yelling and interrupting their classes. and i think for a lot of folks who were looking at that, especially from a conservative perspective, it just undermined their sense that college was something that they wanted to be a part of. got it. in other words, culturally speaking, college was a place seen as increasingly hostile to conservative viewpoints, thus among conservatives, the view of colleges became less and less appealing. yeah, and there was also data that was coming out in this era to support that. so for the first time, we were able to see that on college campuses there really were a whole lot more students who identified as liberal than students who identified as conservative, so about three times as many liberals as conservatives. and a separate survey of college faculty found that there had been this shift from about a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of liberals to about a 5 to 1 ratio. and all of this, i think, was happening at the same time. and so whether republicans were looking at those numbers or not, they were getting this sense that their ideas and their children were not really welcome on these campuses. so on top of college being less and less profitable and lucrative as an economic proposition, which you’ve already described, it’s also becoming less and less culturally welcoming as a proposition for many on the right. and as a result, you have two very large factors weighing on people’s desire to go to college. yeah, and i think in many parts of the country, those two things really come together into one sort of cultural sense that college is not a good idea. in the fall of 2016, i was doing a lot of reporting in a rural county of western north carolina that had just gone for president trump by huge margins. and when i was talking to young people there, what i found was that a lot of them had had really negative experiences in college. they had dropped out. they owed a ton of money. they didn’t feel good about themselves, and a lot of family members were discouraging their younger kids from going on to college. i think if you’re just looking at it through an economic lens, it doesn’t feel good to just say we can’t afford this, or you’re not smart enough to go to college. but when you’re able to turn that into sort of a culture war and say we’re not going to college because that’s the enemy camp, those aren’t people like us, i think in some ways it feels much more palatable. so the big question i’m left with, paul, is how much ultimately does this really matter? let me explain. college is too expensive, so i don’t attend. college is too liberal, so i don’t attend. problem solved a little bit, right? no. i mean for individual young people, you can argue that it might make sense not to attend college. but when you look at the country as a whole, millions of young people opting out of college, it’s a disaster. it is not going to work at all. our economy is just not set up to lose millions of college graduates. we’ll be right back. paul, before the break, you said that our economy just isn’t really set up for a large number of people to opt out of college. what exactly do you mean by that? when you talk to economists about what this economy is going to need over the next decade, what they tell you is that we need more bas. there’s one specific economic report that says there’s going to be 8.5 million missing american ba holders by the end of this decade. wow. 8.5 million college graduates the economy simply does not have. exactly. ok, so many of those jobs might not be filled with college graduates, but what about the people without college degrees? aren’t there still plenty of good jobs for americans who might look at college and say it’s too expensive; that is too much debt. so i’m going to be a plumber. i’m going to be a mechanic. i’m going to have a good paying job that doesn’t require a college degree. that’s really the problem with these financial calculations. just because a college degree often doesn’t pay off, it doesn’t mean that there’s lots of opportunity for high school graduates. so yes, there are some jobs in the skilled trades, in plumbing and welding, that can pay a decent middle class wage, but there aren’t that many of them. and the reality is that for most people who just have a high school diploma as their highest educational credential, the opportunities are really limited. the bureau of labor statistics calculated what are the fastest growing jobs over the next decade for folks who don’t have anything more than a high school degree, and it’s mostly home health aides, food service workers, cooks, warehouse workers, and all of these jobs pay a median salary of less than $31,000 a year. in other words, for those who don’t have a college degree, getting a middle class job is going to be increasingly difficult because this idea that there are tons of great, high paying, for example, plumbing jobs all over the country, which is something you hear, that turns out to be a mythology. yeah, i mean, there are some of them, but there aren’t enough. and if we have a whole lot of people who only have a high school diploma, their opportunities are going to get worse and worse. so this is a very complicated little conundrum that you’re outlining here, because if it’s now going to be almost impossible to enter the middle class with only a high school education, there’s a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t quality to this decision around whether to go to college. if you’re looking at college and thinking that’s just too much debt, then it doesn’t make sense to go. but without that college degree, you are permanently consigned to a low paying job. those are two pretty rough options. yeah, and i think this has a lot to do with why so many americans are angry at higher education. it’s partly that sense that they’re really on the horns of this dilemma well, just explain that. why would all this frustration be channeled at college? i think higher education is embedded in a sort of national economy that is increasingly unfair. and people look at higher education, and they see that it is unfair as well, that there are this limited number of high quality institutions that have a lot more rich kids attending them than poor kids, and they see lots of other institutions where people are coming out without a lot of opportunities and with a lot of debt, and that just makes them understandably mad and understandably anxious. in other words, college is another element of a rigged system. yeah, and it’s actually a very central element of a rigged system. i mean, if the cost of cars or the cost of houses feels really unfair, that’s not a thing that gives you opportunity in the world. it’s not a thing that you need in order to have a middle class life. and so i think part of the anger about higher education comes from this idea that here is this thing that we’ve been told, arguably correctly, is an essential element of creating opportunity for yourself, for your children. and yet, we’ve created a system in which it is increasingly unavailable to lots of middle class people. so this anger you’re describing, and the entire economic mismatch between the need for college graduates and so many financial reasons not to go to college that exists now, it feels like the kind of question that would be pretty urgent for policymakers in washington to think about and to come up with pretty bold solutions for. and we know that some of those solutions are out there. senator bernie sanders has a free college for all plan. president biden has a plan that he’s tried to put into place to reduce loan debt for college graduates. this is not a problem that hasn’t been pretty well thought through. but we also know how quickly, and you hinted at this earlier, we know how quickly these proposals have become politicized because of this reality that republicans view college very differently than democrats. so there isn’t really a consensus right now in the country that this is an institution in american life worth promoting and protecting access to. so how should we think about all of that and the likelihood that any real fix is in the offing? yeah, i mean, i think it is the real danger in this shift in public opinion. i mean, i share a lot of the anxiety and the anger that i think goes into these public opinion polls, people saying they don’t have confidence in college; they don’t think it’s fair; they aren’t sure that it’s worth it. but the problem is that that has turned people away from wanting to try to fix it. i think that’s especially true on the republican side of the aisle, but i think it’s true for a lot of democrats as well, who also feel a lot of anger at college, people trying to pay off student loans, people trying to get into the right kind of college. because we’ve created a higher education system that is so competitive, that is so unequal, i don’t think there’s a real constituency for improving it, for fixing it. so i think any political solution has to be accompanied by a kind of a cultural shift as well, where we think about higher education as a different sort of thing, as something that is a public good and not just a consumer good. explain that distinction. sure. so mostly for instance, we think about public education. we think about high school. we think about the education of 18 year olds as a public good. and then one year later, we want to put all of these same kids into this incredibly competitive, confusing system where they have to figure out how to get to the right college, where it’s extremely risky, there isn’t enough information for them to make good decisions, and the cost is something that we’ve decided that they and their families need to bear on their own. it doesn’t make any sense. there’s not actually a big difference between an 18 year old and a 19 year old, but we’ve created a system where an 18 year old gets a free public education, and a 19 year old has to negotiate this incredibly complex and expensive system. now that you mention it, that does feel like a pretty arbitrary cutoff for when we ensure someone’s education is publicly funded to when we basically throw them to the wolves. yeah, i mean, when i think about it, i think about this earlier moment in american history, about 100 years ago. it’s this period called the high school movement. so in about 1910, only about 10 percent of young americans were graduating from high school. and then there was this shift in the economy where suddenly there weren’t so many jobs on farms and in simple factories, and people needed more education. and the way that communities and the country as a whole responded to that shift in the economy was by saying, all right, sixth grade education isn’t enough; we need to create these institutions in our towns in our cities that will educate people up to age 18, and we’re going to build them together. we’re going to pay for them together. we’re going to raise our taxes in order to do this. and what was created was this incredibly well educated, for the time, american middle class that became the most powerful economy in the world. now the country is getting the same sorts of signals where actually 100 years later, no surprise, education up to 18 is no longer enough. you do need more education in order to succeed in this technological economy. and instead of saying, ok, let’s get together and create a free public education system that’s going to get people another few years of education so that they can compete in this economy, we have decided to just, as you put it, throw young people to the wolves and say it’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to get to the right kind of education and how you’re going to pay for it. so, paul, based on your reporting here, i wonder who you ultimately conclude is responsible for fixing this the most. is it the colleges themselves, who have allowed their tuitions to balloon so much? or is the responsibility with elected officials who hold the purse strings that could pump so much more money into these colleges and alleviate the debt that’s at the heart of why college is so unattractive right now? well, i think it’s a big enough problem that it is going to take lots of different actors to solve. but in the end, i do think it is really a political problem. i mean, it’s certainly true that we have these big political divisions, but in the end, this should be a nonpartisan issue. the economic problems of turning away from college like we are as a nation, those are going to affect democrats and republicans equally. and so getting past that kind of political divide, turning college from this thing where it becomes part of your identity and part of your ideology to just something that is an economic fact, is something that young people really should do and have opportunities to do when they finish high school, shifting that kind of cultural idea i think would be the first step towards solving the political problem. well, paul, thank you very much. we appreciate it. thank you. we’ll be right back. here’s what else you need to know today. for the second year in a row, this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts is darkened by the shadow of war. in a speech before the united nations general assembly on tuesday, president biden sought to rally the world to stick with ukraine in its 18 month long war against russia, warning that appeasing russia in any way would reward its aggression and encourage it to use further force to redraw the international map. russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize ukraine without consequence. but i ask you this, if we abandon the core principles of the united states to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? if we allow ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure? i respectfully suggest the answer is no. in his own speech before the assembly, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky picked up where biden left off, warning the nations of the un that should ukraine fall, they could be next. many seats in the general assembly hall may become empty, empty if russia succeeds with its treachery and aggression. today’s episode was produced by michael simon johnson, summer thomad, and carlos prieto. it was edited by devon taylor and lisa chow, contains original music by will reid and dan powell, and was engineered by chris wood. our theme music is by jim brunberg and ben landsverk of wonderly. that’s it for “the daily.” i’m michael barbaro. see you tomorrow. transcript this transcript was created using speech recognition software. while it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. from “the new york times,” i’m michael barbaro. this is “the daily.” new research and polling show that more and more americans now doubt a once unquestioned fact of american life, that going to college is worth it. today, time’s magazine contributor paul tough on why so many high school students and their parents are souring on higher education and what that will mean for the country’s future. it’s wednesday, september 20. paul, we have spent a lot of time over the past year talking about higher education on “the daily,” first because the supreme court ended affirmative action in college admissions, and second because of new data showing just how much college perpetuates basically financial privilege by very much favoring the rich in the admissions process. but you come at the subject with reporting on something that feels in a way bigger and even more foundational to the question of higher education. you’re finding that fewer and fewer americans even believe in the idea of college. so just walk us through those findings. yeah, so about a decade ago, i think americans were feeling pretty positively about higher education. and you could see that in all kinds of public opinion polls. no matter how you ask the question, people would say college was worth it. parents would say i want my kids to go to college. graduates would say this was worth it, this experience. and then at some point in the last 10 years, that really started to shift. and now when you look at public opinion polls, the answers are all going in the opposite direction. people are much more skeptical of college as an institution. they don’t trust it. parents aren’t sure they want to send their kids. young people aren’t convinced that they need a degree to do well. and all of that shift has happened just in the last decade. just how much more skeptical? i wonder if you can give us some of the data points. the number that really stuck out to me in the public opinion polls is that about a decade ago like 98 percent of parents said that they expected their kids to attend college. i think at the time it was just this accepted truth. right, that’s basically universal. exactly, that everyone was going to go to college. and now when you look at public opinion polls, it’s about half of american parents say they don’t want their kids to go to a four year college. so that’s this shift in public opinion that’s not just on the margins; it’s a shift in how we think about this institution. and that shift in public opinion was mirrored by a shift in who was actually showing up on college campuses. so in the fall of 2010, there were more than 18 million undergraduates on american college campuses. in 2021, that figure dipped to 15.5 million. so that’s 2.5 million young people who disappeared from american college campuses. wow. so americans aren’t just losing faith in the idea of college, they’re losing enthusiasm to attend college. exactly. and what you’re laying out is a really significant change in any time frame, but it’s especially big within the period of just a decade. and it’s especially big given that college has for so long felt like a pillar of american society. i think of it alongside home ownership, it has been held up as a central component of the american dream, with proven long standing financial upsides. and even as colleges become extremely expensive, that image of financial upside has endured, that ultimately it’s just worth it. so help us understand what exactly has changed here. well, partly what’s interesting is what hasn’t changed. so there is this number that economists call the college wage premium, which is how much more a typical college graduate is going to earn than a typical high school graduate. that hit a boost of about 60 percent, 65 percent way back in 2000, and it stayed at the same level ever since. college graduates are still on average making a whole lot more than high school graduates. which is why so many people have believed you’re supposed to go to college. right. on that level, the financial benefit is real. and so the idea that i think people always had that college was the way to achieve a comfortable, affluent life is quite valid. the problem that i think families and economists are now coming to understand inherent in the college wage premium is that it measures your income, but it doesn’t measure how much you paid for college, and it doesn’t measure how much debt you have. and so that shortcoming is what has pushed a variety of economists to come up with new ways of capturing what i think a lot of american families are feeling. how worth it is a college degree over the long term when you factor in how much you’re spending and how much you owe? and this one set of economists in saint louis came up with this calculation they call the college wealth premium. so unlike the college wage premium, which just measures how much a college grad earns compared to a high school grad, this measures how much wealth you accumulate, your assets minus your debts over the course of your lifetime. and the picture they found of how well college grads are doing was much different than when you just look at the college income premium on its own. well, just explain that. what does the college wealth premium find that better reflects reality than the college wage premium that we have relied on so long and that has put college at the center of so many people’s aspirations? well, it finds that it has really shifted did over time. when you were born, what generation you’re a part of makes a huge difference. so for people born in the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s, the college wealth premium is functioning exactly the way it’s supposed to. so the college grads are amassing two or three times as much wealth over their lifetime than high school grads. but when they looked at young people who were born after 1980, in the 1980s and 1990s, their wealth benefit was much smaller. and for certain cohorts, for black and latino headed families, that college wealth premium had disappeared altogether. so a college grad wasn’t amassing any more wealth over their lifetime than a high school grad. so walk us through that. i mean, clearly the financial math of attending college isn’t working any longer. i think we can guess why, but just explain the mechanics of that math and why a college degree isn’t creating the kind of wealth that it used to even if it still guarantees higher wages. well, i think it has a lot to do with debt and what people are paying for college. if you’ve got lots of debt, your household wealth is going to go down. there’s lots of these college graduates who are on paper earning quite a bit of money, but their debt has become so high that they can’t really accumulate the kind of wealth that earlier generations were able to do. but even for those people who aren’t going into a lot of debt, the amount of money that they’re spending on college is still subtracted from their assets. so one of the things that these economists found is that even if you leave college without any debt, if your family has had to plow a big percentage of their assets into your college education, that makes a big difference. that is money that can’t go towards a down payment on a first home or a nest egg to start a family, a way to start a small business. and especially in young adulthood, those are the sorts of things that really start to accumulate wealth. so debt’s a huge part of it, but the costs of college hurt wealth accumulation for almost everybody. and thus the incentive to attend college becomes, for some, virtually nonexistent. yeah, i mean, if you’re looking at that number, if you’re looking at how much wealth am i going to have over my lifetime, it is harder to make the case, especially for younger people, that a college degree is going to really pay off. i’m curious, paul, whether the existence or the absence of the wealth premium for those who attend college versus those who don’t is dependent on some of the decisions people make about colleges. attending a public college, for example, versus a potentially much more expensive private college, or what you major in, and therefore how lucrative your career is as a result. yes, this is another big finding that economists have made over the last few years that helps explain, i think, this shift in public opinion. which is that there’s much more risk, there’s much more uncertainty in going to college. it really does depend on who you are, and what you major in, on where you go. so some of the numbers that really stand out to me is that if you can guarantee that you are going to graduate from college in four years, and if college is absolutely free, then in this amazingly hypothetical world, you have a 96 percent chance of having college pay off over your lifetime. but once those imaginary ideas start to fade, your chance of coming out ahead is much less. so if you have a normal risk of dropping out   about 40 percent of people who start college drop out before they finish   suddenly you only have three in four chance of earning more than a high school graduate. once you start increasing the amount that you spend, spending $25,000, spending $50,000, your chance of winning the college gamble becomes less and less, comes down to close to 50 percent. and it really also matters what your major is. if you major in a science technology, engineering, math field, then your chances bump up once again, and you’re likely to win the bet. but if you’re taking anything else, if you’re studying arts, humanities, social science degree, your chance of coming out ahead, if you’re spending even $25,000 a year on college, is no better than a coin flip. in other words, there are a lot of well trodden, widely taken routes to college that are ensuring that you will not have a college wealth premium over someone who didn’t attend college. well, they’re not quite ensuring it, but they are putting it at risk. and that’s, i think, what really changes. it’s just much more of a gamble than it used to be. i mean, one way of thinking about it is that going to college used to be like investing in a treasury bill. it was a very solid, boring, responsible thing to do. now it’s much more like going to a casino. you might come out ahead. you might win big, but you also might lose your shirt. you might lose everything. and that, i think, is what has really changed and what young people especially are responding to. they feel this sense of risk in going to college that didn’t used to be there, and i think understandably just makes them and their families feel much more anxious about this investment. so when we remove the college wealth premium, then we have clearly taken away what i think many would argue is the single biggest incentive to attend college in the first place, which helps explain why millions of people are opting not to go to college. but the polling you cited at the beginning of our conversation makes me wonder if there’s more to this than just bad economic outcomes of attending college. you said that an increasing number of americans just have a dim view of college itself, which feels a little bit separate and apart from just money. and i wonder what you think is going on there. i think you’re right. i think there is more going on than just economics. i think there is a cultural shift, and significantly a political shift that is happening at the same time, where certain americans, especially those on the conservative side of the political spectrum, republicans and those who lean toward the republican party, they are the ones who have turned against college most vehemently over the last decade or so. it’s amazing when you look at the public opinion polling. so up to about 2015, republicans and democrats were answering questions about college in more or less the same way. they were both mostly on board with the college idea. and then beginning in 2015, republican public opinion about college just fell off a cliff. it just nosedived no matter how you ask the question. for some reason or other, republicans were just becoming much more skeptical about college, and that has continued to today. i’m curious what your reporting leads you to conclude is the cause of that. this is pre trump. this is pre pandemic. what is it about college in the 2015 era that becomes partisan? well, i talked to a lot of conservative education analysts for this story, and they gave slightly different answers. but this was a moment in the middle of that decade where cultural politics were really shifting. in some way, that was what trump was reflecting when he started his campaign. and there was this sense, i think, among a lot of conservatives that college campuses had become these hotbeds of protest, where these spoiled rich kids were screaming and yelling and interrupting their classes. and i think for a lot of folks who were looking at that, especially from a conservative perspective, it just undermined their sense that college was something that they wanted to be a part of. got it. in other words, culturally speaking, college was a place seen as increasingly hostile to conservative viewpoints, thus among conservatives, the view of colleges became less and less appealing. yeah, and there was also data that was coming out in this era to support that. so for the first time, we were able to see that on college campuses there really were a whole lot more students who identified as liberal than students who identified as conservative, so about three times as many liberals as conservatives. and a separate survey of college faculty found that there had been this shift from about a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of liberals to about a 5 to 1 ratio. and all of this, i think, was happening at the same time. and so whether republicans were looking at those numbers or not, they were getting this sense that their ideas and their children were not really welcome on these campuses. so on top of college being less and less profitable and lucrative as an economic proposition, which you’ve already described, it’s also becoming less and less culturally welcoming as a proposition for many on the right. and as a result, you have two very large factors weighing on people’s desire to go to college. yeah, and i think in many parts of the country, those two things really come together into one sort of cultural sense that college is not a good idea. in the fall of 2016, i was doing a lot of reporting in a rural county of western north carolina that had just gone for president trump by huge margins. and when i was talking to young people there, what i found was that a lot of them had had really negative experiences in college. they had dropped out. they owed a ton of money. they didn’t feel good about themselves, and a lot of family members were discouraging their younger kids from going on to college. i think if you’re just looking at it through an economic lens, it doesn’t feel good to just say we can’t afford this, or you’re not smart enough to go to college. but when you’re able to turn that into sort of a culture war and say we’re not going to college because that’s the enemy camp, those aren’t people like us, i think in some ways it feels much more palatable. so the big question i’m left with, paul, is how much ultimately does this really matter? let me explain. college is too expensive, so i don’t attend. college is too liberal, so i don’t attend. problem solved a little bit, right? no. i mean for individual young people, you can argue that it might make sense not to attend college. but when you look at the country as a whole, millions of young people opting out of college, it’s a disaster. it is not going to work at all. our economy is just not set up to lose millions of college graduates. we’ll be right back. paul, before the break, you said that our economy just isn’t really set up for a large number of people to opt out of college. what exactly do you mean by that? when you talk to economists about what this economy is going to need over the next decade, what they tell you is that we need more bas. there’s one specific economic report that says there’s going to be 8.5 million missing american ba holders by the end of this decade. wow. 8.5 million college graduates the economy simply does not have. exactly. ok, so many of those jobs might not be filled with college graduates, but what about the people without college degrees? aren’t there still plenty of good jobs for americans who might look at college and say it’s too expensive; that is too much debt. so i’m going to be a plumber. i’m going to be a mechanic. i’m going to have a good paying job that doesn’t require a college degree. that’s really the problem with these financial calculations. just because a college degree often doesn’t pay off, it doesn’t mean that there’s lots of opportunity for high school graduates. so yes, there are some jobs in the skilled trades, in plumbing and welding, that can pay a decent middle class wage, but there aren’t that many of them. and the reality is that for most people who just have a high school diploma as their highest educational credential, the opportunities are really limited. the bureau of labor statistics calculated what are the fastest growing jobs over the next decade for folks who don’t have anything more than a high school degree, and it’s mostly home health aides, food service workers, cooks, warehouse workers, and all of these jobs pay a median salary of less than $31,000 a year. in other words, for those who don’t have a college degree, getting a middle class job is going to be increasingly difficult because this idea that there are tons of great, high paying, for example, plumbing jobs all over the country, which is something you hear, that turns out to be a mythology. yeah, i mean, there are some of them, but there aren’t enough. and if we have a whole lot of people who only have a high school diploma, their opportunities are going to get worse and worse. so this is a very complicated little conundrum that you’re outlining here, because if it’s now going to be almost impossible to enter the middle class with only a high school education, there’s a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t quality to this decision around whether to go to college. if you’re looking at college and thinking that’s just too much debt, then it doesn’t make sense to go. but without that college degree, you are permanently consigned to a low paying job. those are two pretty rough options. yeah, and i think this has a lot to do with why so many americans are angry at higher education. it’s partly that sense that they’re really on the horns of this dilemma well, just explain that. why would all this frustration be channeled at college? i think higher education is embedded in a sort of national economy that is increasingly unfair. and people look at higher education, and they see that it is unfair as well, that there are this limited number of high quality institutions that have a lot more rich kids attending them than poor kids, and they see lots of other institutions where people are coming out without a lot of opportunities and with a lot of debt, and that just makes them understandably mad and understandably anxious. in other words, college is another element of a rigged system. yeah, and it’s actually a very central element of a rigged system. i mean, if the cost of cars or the cost of houses feels really unfair, that’s not a thing that gives you opportunity in the world. it’s not a thing that you need in order to have a middle class life. and so i think part of the anger about higher education comes from this idea that here is this thing that we’ve been told, arguably correctly, is an essential element of creating opportunity for yourself, for your children. and yet, we’ve created a system in which it is increasingly unavailable to lots of middle class people. so this anger you’re describing, and the entire economic mismatch between the need for college graduates and so many financial reasons not to go to college that exists now, it feels like the kind of question that would be pretty urgent for policymakers in washington to think about and to come up with pretty bold solutions for. and we know that some of those solutions are out there. senator bernie sanders has a free college for all plan. president biden has a plan that he’s tried to put into place to reduce loan debt for college graduates. this is not a problem that hasn’t been pretty well thought through. but we also know how quickly, and you hinted at this earlier, we know how quickly these proposals have become politicized because of this reality that republicans view college very differently than democrats. so there isn’t really a consensus right now in the country that this is an institution in american life worth promoting and protecting access to. so how should we think about all of that and the likelihood that any real fix is in the offing? yeah, i mean, i think it is the real danger in this shift in public opinion. i mean, i share a lot of the anxiety and the anger that i think goes into these public opinion polls, people saying they don’t have confidence in college; they don’t think it’s fair; they aren’t sure that it’s worth it. but the problem is that that has turned people away from wanting to try to fix it. i think that’s especially true on the republican side of the aisle, but i think it’s true for a lot of democrats as well, who also feel a lot of anger at college, people trying to pay off student loans, people trying to get into the right kind of college. because we’ve created a higher education system that is so competitive, that is so unequal, i don’t think there’s a real constituency for improving it, for fixing it. so i think any political solution has to be accompanied by a kind of a cultural shift as well, where we think about higher education as a different sort of thing, as something that is a public good and not just a consumer good. explain that distinction. sure. so mostly for instance, we think about public education. we think about high school. we think about the education of 18 year olds as a public good. and then one year later, we want to put all of these same kids into this incredibly competitive, confusing system where they have to figure out how to get to the right college, where it’s extremely risky, there isn’t enough information for them to make good decisions, and the cost is something that we’ve decided that they and their families need to bear on their own. it doesn’t make any sense. there’s not actually a big difference between an 18 year old and a 19 year old, but we’ve created a system where an 18 year old gets a free public education, and a 19 year old has to negotiate this incredibly complex and expensive system. now that you mention it, that does feel like a pretty arbitrary cutoff for when we ensure someone’s education is publicly funded to when we basically throw them to the wolves. yeah, i mean, when i think about it, i think about this earlier moment in american history, about 100 years ago. it’s this period called the high school movement. so in about 1910, only about 10 percent of young americans were graduating from high school. and then there was this shift in the economy where suddenly there weren’t so many jobs on farms and in simple factories, and people needed more education. and the way that communities and the country as a whole responded to that shift in the economy was by saying, all right, sixth grade education isn’t enough; we need to create these institutions in our towns in our cities that will educate people up to age 18, and we’re going to build them together. we’re going to pay for them together. we’re going to raise our taxes in order to do this. and what was created was this incredibly well educated, for the time, american middle class that became the most powerful economy in the world. now the country is getting the same sorts of signals where actually 100 years later, no surprise, education up to 18 is no longer enough. you do need more education in order to succeed in this technological economy. and instead of saying, ok, let’s get together and create a free public education system that’s going to get people another few years of education so that they can compete in this economy, we have decided to just, as you put it, throw young people to the wolves and say it’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to get to the right kind of education and how you’re going to pay for it. so, paul, based on your reporting here, i wonder who you ultimately conclude is responsible for fixing this the most. is it the colleges themselves, who have allowed their tuitions to balloon so much? or is the responsibility with elected officials who hold the purse strings that could pump so much more money into these colleges and alleviate the debt that’s at the heart of why college is so unattractive right now? well, i think it’s a big enough problem that it is going to take lots of different actors to solve. but in the end, i do think it is really a political problem. i mean, it’s certainly true that we have these big political divisions, but in the end, this should be a nonpartisan issue. the economic problems of turning away from college like we are as a nation, those are going to affect democrats and republicans equally. and so getting past that kind of political divide, turning college from this thing where it becomes part of your identity and part of your ideology to just something that is an economic fact, is something that young people really should do and have opportunities to do when they finish high school, shifting that kind of cultural idea i think would be the first step towards solving the political problem. well, paul, thank you very much. we appreciate it. thank you. we’ll be right back. here’s what else you need to know today. for the second year in a row, this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts is darkened by the shadow of war. in a speech before the united nations general assembly on tuesday, president biden sought to rally the world to stick with ukraine in its 18 month long war against russia, warning that appeasing russia in any way would reward its aggression and encourage it to use further force to redraw the international map. russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize ukraine without consequence. but i ask you this, if we abandon the core principles of the united states to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? if we allow ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure? i respectfully suggest the answer is no. in his own speech before the assembly, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky picked up where biden left off, warning the nations of the un that should ukraine fall, they could be next. many seats in the general assembly hall may become empty, empty if russia succeeds with its treachery and aggression. today’s episode was produced by michael simon johnson, summer thomad, and carlos prieto. it was edited by devon taylor and lisa chow, contains original music by will reid and dan powell, and was engineered by chris wood. our theme music is by jim brunberg and ben landsverk of wonderly. that’s it for “the daily.” i’m michael barbaro. see you tomorrow. hosted by michael barbaro produced by michael simon johnsonsummer thomad and carlos prieto edited by devon taylor and lisa chow original music by will reid and dan powell engineered by chris wood new research and polling show that more and more americans now doubt a previously unquestioned fact of u.s. life   that going to college is worth it. paul tough, a contributing writer for the new york times magazine, explains why so many high school students and their parents are souring on higher education and what it will mean for the country’s future. paul tough, a contributing writer for the new york times magazine who has written several books on inequality in education. americans are losing faith in the value of college. whose fault is that? in december, colby sawyer in new hampshire reduced its tuition to $17,500 a year, from about $46,000. the cut was a recognition that few pay the list price. there are a lot of ways to listen to the daily. here’s how. we aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. you can find them at the top of the page. paul tough contributed reporting. fact checking by susan lee. the daily is made by rachel quester, lynsea garrison, clare toeniskoetter, paige cowett, michael simon johnson, brad fisher, chris wood, jessica cheung, stella tan, alexandra leigh young, lisa chow, eric krupke, marc georges, luke vander ploeg, m.j. davis lin, dan powell, sydney harper, mike benoist, liz o. baylen, asthaa chaturvedi, rachelle bonja, diana nguyen, marion lozano, corey schreppel, rob szypko, elisheba ittoop, mooj zadie, patricia willens, rowan niemisto, jody becker, rikki novetsky, john ketchum, nina feldman, will reid, carlos prieto, ben calhoun, susan lee, lexie diao, mary wilson, alex stern, dan farrell, sophia lanman, shannon lin, diane wong, devon taylor, alyssa moxley, summer thomad and olivia natt. our theme music is by jim brunberg and ben landsverk of wonderly. special thanks to sam dolnick, paula szuchman, lisa tobin, larissa anderson, julia simon, sofia milan, mahima chablani, elizabeth davis moorer, jeffrey miranda, renan borelli, maddy masiello, isabella anderson and nina lassam.

our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. the american debate over whether a college education is worth it began when the colonists arrived from europe and founded “new college” (later renamed harvard university) in 1636. in spring 2024 there were more than 17.8 million college students in the united states. [133][269] colonial america produced nine colleges that still operate: harvard university (1636), the college of william & mary (1693), yale university (1701), princeton university (1746), columbia university (1754), brown university (1764), dartmouth college (1769), rutgers university (1766), and the university of pennsylvania (1740 or 1749). these universities were funded by the colony or england and usually catered to a specific religious denomination, such as congregational or presbyterian (puritan). primary and secondary school systems were not yet established, so “college students” were sometimes boys as young as 14 or 15 years old and were admitted to receive preparatory education with the assumption that they would matriculate to college level courses. [3][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] colonial colleges were mainly founded and attended by wealthy puritans and followed the models of british and scottish universities, which focused on general education and moral character. the goal of the college was to produce christian gentlemen who would inherit family businesses, remain within the congregational or presbyterian (puritan) faith, and be responsible leaders in the new world. colonial college tuition costs and the loss of an able bodied man from the family farm or business made the prestige and social status conferred by college unattainable for most families. about 1% of white males aged 18 21 attended college, and students frequently left college after their first or second year, with no “dropout” stigma. out of 35 students, yale conferred nine bachelor’s degrees by 1711. colonial colleges excluded women but sometimes had “indian schools” to spread puritanism in native american communities for religious indoctrination purposes. the american revolution (1775 83) drained colleges of students who became soldiers and buildings that became barracks and of the funds from england, resulting in the closing of many colleges postwar. [3][87][88] the late 18th and early 19th centuries created a college building boom, increasing the number of schools from 25 colleges in 1800 to 241 colleges in 1860; the variety of schools to include seminaries, scientific schools, military service academies, and teaching schools; and the programs of study to include medicine, law, military science, and agriculture. state universities came into prominence beginning with the university of north carolina (1795) and the university of georgia (1801). in the spring of 1833, oberlin collegiate institute (now oberlin college) admitted women to a “ladies course” program and in 1837 admitted four women to the baccalaureate program, three of whom graduated in 1841 with degrees. [3][100] the 1862 morrill land grant act gave federally controlled land to states to open “land grant” colleges, which were required to focus on “useful arts” like agriculture, mechanics, mining, and military instruction and thus often included “a&m” (agricultural and mechanical) in the names. the idea of a “useful” education also created schools like the massachusetts institute of technology in 1851. many craftsmen who relied upon apprenticeships were skeptical of college training and distrusted scholars and scientists. a college degree was still seen by many as a social marker rather than a marker of educational attainment. [3][89] by 1865 most southern colleges ceased offering classes because the american civil war caused significant physical damage to many colleges, while others were made into hospitals and shelters for soldiers, and many southern students and faculty left college for the confederate army. in 1870 the number of colleges was 560 (up from just nine colleges by the american revolution). [3][87] the early 1900s saw institutions created to educate groups excluded by traditional colleges: women, black people, immigrants, and roman catholics. black colleges remained restricted to grade school and agricultural  or industrial focused instruction with little college level education offered. iowa state university was the first co ed land grant college, though women remained segregated and were expected to study “domestic science” or similar topics. colleges were built in the south to keep southern sons “far from the dangerous notions circulating at a harvard or a yale,” with high tuitions and a code of honor that included duels amongst students. “hilltop colleges” in new england opened to cater to older working students training to be teachers or ministers. colleges built on the emerging western frontier had small populations to support them and there were often less than a few hundred students who could attend the college. “diploma mills” also popped up during this time, especially the “medical college,” which frequently had no campus or faculty but would confer degrees in exchange for donations. [3][90][91] the goal of college attendance still was not completion of a bachelor’s degree. some students took two years of courses in order to earn a license of instruction certificate to teach public school, but many did not complete the degree because, as explained by roger l. geiger, distinguished professor of education at pennsylvania state university, “there was nothing to be done with a bachelor degree that could not also be done without one.” [3][92] by 1900 5% (about 256,000) of 18 21 year old males attended college, up from 3.1% (32,364) in 1860 and 1% (1,237) in 1800. students were normally accepted based on gender, religion, and race. graduation rates continued to be low: about 30% of the 1903 freshman class at kentucky state college graduated, while transylvania university averaged a 50% dropout rate in the first year and barely 10% graduated with a degree in four years. [3][87] although tuition had seen no major increases, the price of college was still too high for the average family. for the 1907 08 academic year, brown university published an average tuition budget: $105 for tuition, $48 for “incidental fees,” $60 for room, $150 for board, and $30 for books and lab fees, totaling $393 per year, or $9,535.67 in 2012 u.s. dollars. by 1910 “undergraduate life” came into prominence with mascots, school colors, college hymns, intercollegiate athletics, and other traditions. [3] world war i dropped enrollments on the east coast by 27 40%, but only 10% of stanford men left college for the war. in total, 540 colleges were made into training campuses for the students’ army training corps to train 125,000 men. around this time, the american medical association began lobbying for medical schools to require some college science (if not a completed college degree) for admission into medical schools, law schools followed harvard law school’s example to require baccalaureate degrees for admission, and seminaries were requiring at least a year of college. [3][92] after 1920 college students became associated with parties, gambling, and “bathtub gin.” but such partying was tolerated because of the upward social mobility gained by making contacts and partying with the right crowd. [3] between 1920 and 1945 secondary schools expanded, increasing the number of high school graduates, the number of college students from 250,000 to 1.3 million, and the percentage of college students from 5% to 15%. however, an 18  to 24 year old white person was four times more likely to attend college than a black person of the same age, and women constituted about 40% of college enrollments but were still being trained in segregation as teachers, good wives, and mothers. [3] in the 1920s and 1930s college tuition started to rise. one national survey showed tuition at $70 in 1920 and $133 in 1940, or from $1,064.44 to $2,889.21 in 2023 u.s. dollars. in comparison, a 1940 new pontiac car cost $483 ($10,492.38 in 2023 dollars). [3] after world war ii, colleges and universities moved toward advanced, selective programs and expanded the base of students admitted. research universities, junior colleges (now called community colleges), and for profit institutions thrived. [3] in the 1939 40 school year student enrollment was under 1.5 million nationally, but by the 1949 50 school year student enrollment grew to 2.7 million. the 1944 g.i. bill contributed to some of the enrollment gains, and by the beginning of the 1945 46 school year 88,000 veterans were accepted into the program; by 1946 over one million were accepted; and by 1950 14 million veterans were in the program. women represented about 40% of enrollment in the 1939 40 school year, but that number dropped to 32% in 1950. individual schools implemented honor programs, specialty seminars, study abroad, and smaller class sizes to attract more discerning students. by 1960 national enrollment was at 3.6 million and at 7.9 million in 1970. society became interested in the college lives of “joe college” and “betty coed” and created the college ideal of graduating in four years, marrying the college sweetheart, and finding a good job. [3] the federal government created the higher education general information survey, later renamed the integrated postsecondary education data system, and collected data in the fall of 1968, the first time standardized data was collected about colleges and universities nationwide. [93] pell grants were introduced in 1972 and increased the number of students for whom higher education was possible. by 1978 the financial aid focus changed from grants to loans, increasing the amount of debt a graduating college student owned. in the 1975 76 school year 75% of students received grants and 21% received loans, compared to the 1984 85 school year, in which 29% of students received grants and 66% received loans. [3][94] the major shift in higher education during this time was the transition from mass higher education, expecting to educate 40 50% of high school graduates, to universal higher education, expecting to educate all high school graduates. the shift was seen in public school enrollments, which accounted for about 75% of enrollments in 1970, up from the almost equal split between public and private colleges in 1950. community colleges and technical institutes also gained students: from 82,000 in 1950 to 1.3 million in 1980. [3] transfer students were accommodated, classes were offered at military bases, and courses were offered at extension sites for nontraditional students while colleges were opening to diverse student populations. title ix (1972) and affirmative action demanded inclusive admission practices for women and black students. [3][95][96] the 1970s also saw the shift from higher education for education’s sake to a need for pre professional studies and a translation to work after graduation. for many, to be considered middle class or to get a middle class job required a college degree. [2] the 1970s and 1980s brought questions of whether the return on a college degree was worth the investment. in 1971 a male college graduate earned 22% more than a high school graduate, but by 1979 a college degree increased earnings by 13%. by 1987 the earning gap was 38%, which was an improvement but added doubts about the stability of higher education as an investment. the 1980s also brought a dramatic increase in the cost of college, which was rising faster than inflation and the average family income. [7][29] the 1990s and 2000s saw a rise in enrollment and tuition costs and a steadily lower unemployment rate for college graduates. college enrollment increased 11% between 1990 and 2000 and increased 37% from 2000 10 to 21 million students. the average college tuition in the 1990 91 school year was $10,620 and rose to $13,393 in 2000 01. between the 2000 01 school year and the 2010 11 school year public college costs (tuition, room, and board) increased 42% to $18,133. the unemployment rate for workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher in 1990 was 6.5% (compared to 24.9% for high school dropouts) and was 3.7% in 2000 (compared to 18.4% for high school dropouts). by 2010 the unemployment rate for college graduates increased to 5.5%, while the rate for college dropouts was 17.3%. [97][98][99] a 2011 pew research survey showed 50% of college presidents said college is meant to “mature and grow intellectually,” while 48% said college should “provide skills, knowledge and training to help…[students] succeed in the working world.” [25] the number of colleges and universities grew from 1,851 in 1950, to 3,535 in 1990, to 6,900 in 2013. in the 1949 50 school year 2.66 million students were enrolled in colleges and universities; by the 1989 90 school year 13.54 million students were enrolled. in fall 2013, 19.9 million students were enrolled in colleges and universities. [1][2] according to the u.s. census bureau, 33.4% of the adult u.s. population had a bachelor’s degree or higher as of mar. 30, 2017 (up from 28% in 2006), with 20.8% holding bachelor’s degrees, 9.3% with associate’s degrees, 1.5% with professional degrees, and 1.9% with doctorates. in 1940, when the u.s. census bureau began collecting education data, only 4.6% of adults held bachelor’s degrees. [109][110] as many colleges went online or to a hybrid online and in person model during the covid 19 pandemic, colleges overall saw a significant drop in fall 2020 enrollment. undergraduate enrollment fell 3.6% (about 560,000 students) from fall 2019. community colleges were hit especially hard, with a drop of more than 10% (more than 544,000 students). [130] 21.7% fewer high school seniors (class of 2020) had enrolled in college, with a larger drop (32.6%) at high poverty high schools. 14% fewer students in the class of 2021 filed free application for federal student aid forms. [130][131] doug shapiro, executive research director at the national student clearinghouse, called the drops “completely unprecedented.” [130] one survey showed that 75% of households with at least one member attending college classes in fall 2020 changed higher education plans during the covid 19 pandemic. most often, households took classes in a different format (39%) or canceled plans altogether (37%), according to anthony p. carnevale, director and research professor, and megan l. fasules, assistant research professor and research economist, both at the georgetown university center on education and the workforce. [132] college enrollment continued to decline after the pandemic, with 17,153,317 students enrolled in spring 2023, a 7.1% decrease in college enrollment from 2019. both college students and college instructors faced challenges of limited online learning during the pandemic. rocky classroom experiences resulted in lower test scores, incomplete instruction in vital courses such as math, and increased mental health issues like anxiety. colleges fear the fallout will last years as reports show that elementary students have experienced the same negative effects of the pandemic. [133][135] freshman enrollment dropped yet again for the fall 2024 term, with the most impact being seen at schools with the largest populations of low income students. the estimated 5 percent drop comes about a year after there were enormous complications with the fafsa (free application for federal student aid) system that delayed application processing, which may have fueled the almost 6 percent decline in freshman enrolling right after high school. at the same time, the department of education reported it would award federal aid to 3 percent more students in 2024, but the department also acknowledged it received 2 percent fewer applications for aid. [267][268] “by 2031, 72 percent of jobs in the u.s. will require postsecondary education and/or training. between 2021 and 2031, there will be 18.5 million job openings per year on average, and some 12.5 million of these annualized openings will require at least some college education,” according to the center of education at georgetown university. [270] the projection above bears out historically: only 22% of american jobs required a high school diploma or less in 2021, compared to 72% in the 1970s. in 2021, 48% of jobs required an associate’s degree or higher. during the recession between dec. 2007 and jan. 2010 jobs requiring college degrees grew by 187,000, while jobs requiring some college or an associate’s degree fell by 1.75 million, and jobs requiring a high school degree or less fell by 5.6 million. according to researchers at georgetown university, 99% of job growth (or 11.5 million of 11.6 million jobs) between 2010 and 2016 went to workers with associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, or graduate degrees. [13][104][105][270] college graduates are well placed to get jobs because colleges offer networking opportunities, career services, internships, job shadowing, job fairs, and volunteer opportunities in addition to a wide variety of courses that may provide a career direction. over 80% of college students complete internships before graduation, giving them valuable employment experience before entering the job market. [27] the unemployment rate for americans aged 25 to 34 with less than a high school education was 7.7 percent in december 2024. the rate drops to 4.4 percent if the person completed some college, to 3.6 percent with an associate’s degree, to 2.4 percent with a bachelor’s degree, and to 2.0 with a graduate or professional degree. [272] in addition to being more likely to have a job, those who have attended or graduated from college are more like to like their jobs: 58% of college graduates and people with some college or associate’s degrees reported being “very satisfied” with their jobs, compared to 50% of high school graduates and 40% of people without a high school diploma. [11][101][106][116] plus, college graduates make more money. on average, men and women aged 25 to 35 working full time with a bachelor’s degree or higher earn $77,000 and $65,000 annually respectively. by contrast, the same age group of men and women with only high school diplomas earn $45,000 and $36,000 respectively. and because college graduates are more likely to have better jobs with better salaries, they are also more likely to have health insurance and retirement plans. [11][15][273] students have the opportunity to interact with other students and faculty, join student organizations and clubs, and take part in discussions and debates. “american children party [in college]. but you know something, by partying, they learn social skills. they learn how to interact with each other.…they develop skills which make them innovative. americans are the most innovative people in the world because of the education system,” according to vivek wadhwa, technology entrepreneur and scholar. [7][16][18] according to arthur chickering’s “seven vectors” student development theory, “developing mature interpersonal relationships” is one of the seven stages students progress through as they attend college. students ranked “interpersonal skills” as the most important skill used in their daily lives in a survey of 11,000 college students. [7][16][18] students live, go to classes, and socialize with other students from around the world and learn from professors with a variety of expertise. the community of people on a college campus means students are likely to make diverse friends and business connections and, potentially, find a partner and life long friends. access to a variety of people allows college students to learn about different cultures, religions, and personalities they may have not been exposed to in their hometowns, which broadens their knowledge and perspective.[106] college students are also more civic minded. according to the bureau of labor statistics, 43% of college graduates did volunteer work, compared to 19% of high school graduates and 27% of adults in general. they and, college graduates are more likely to vote, and even more likely to have donated blood in the past year (9%) than people with some college (6%), high school graduates (4%), and people who did not complete high school (2%). [11][21][22][23][287] additionally, college graduates attract higher paying employers to their communities. a 1% increase in college graduates in a community increases the wages of workers without a high school diploma by 1.9% and the wages of high school graduates by 1.6%. plus, college graduates have lower poverty rates and lower rates of reliance on public services due to their lower unemployment rates. [21][28][29] about 83% of college graduates reported being in excellent health, while 73% of high school graduates reported the same. a university of southern california study found that adults over 65 with college degrees spent more years with “good cognition” and fewer years suffering from dementia than adults who did not complete high school. another study found that 20% of all adults were smokers, while only 9% of college graduates were smokers. 63% of 25 34 year old college graduates reported exercising vigorously at least once a week, compared to 37% of high school graduates. college degrees were linked to lower blood pressure in a 30 year peer reviewed study and lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) by a carnegie mellon psychology department study. furthermore, only 23% of college graduates aged 35 44 years old were obese, compared to 37% of high school graduates. college graduates, on average, live six years longer than high school graduates. [11][15][19][20][120] plus, college graduates have had lower infant mortality rates than high school graduates. pregnant women with only a high school education were 31% more likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby than one with a college degree. children aged two to five years old in households headed by college graduates have a 6% obesity rate, compared to 14% for children in households headed by high school graduates. 18% more children aged three to five years old with mothers who have a bachelor’s degree could recognize all letters compared to children of high school graduates. about 59% of children in elementary and middle school with at least one college graduate for a parent participated in after school activities like sports, arts, and scouting, compared to 27% for high school graduate parents. [11][15] “diverse environments can help people develop empathy, build meaningful relationships, expand their worldviews, and become more innovative through collaboration,” summarized purdue global. [284] a 2024 study of 24,000 british people found that those with a diverse social network were more likely to have “higher levels of social cohesion” (being connected and feeling like you belong) in their communities and reported higher levels of personal well being. "while interacting with people with the same characteristics may offer a sense of familiarity and comfort, our study suggests that embracing diversity is crucial for fostering resilience and adaptability in an ever changing world," noted study co author matt bennett. [285] as kellogg school professor nicole stephens explained, “in a country that is highly segregated, like the united states, universities are one of the few places where people have the chance to have meaningful and substantive interactions across the lines of social class.” when diverse groups of college students interact, the students had higher gpas and a greater sense of belonging. [286] while we think of “diversity” as race, gender, sexuality, and other personal markers, diversity, called the “gold standard of bias reduction” by stephens, can just as easily apply to ideas. “higher education is not just about imparting academic knowledge; it’s about learning how to engage with that knowledge critically. the exposure to diverse perspectives made possible by a diverse campus challenges students to question assumptions and prejudices, seek new information, and consider alternative viewpoints. this dynamic learning environment prepares students to tackle complex real world challenges with a well rounded and informed new perspective. it encourages them to become active learners who seek out diverse sources of information and engage in meaningful discussions concerning their studies and interpersonal relationships,” as thaís roberto of keystone education group explained. [283][286] people frequently live in areas of homogeneity where everyone looks like each other, has a similar culture, and similar political backgrounds. college is a place for young adults to experience the diversity of the world, especially as technology and globalization increases interactions with diverse people.

when the presidents of three of the nation’s most selective private colleges were called to testify before a u.s. house committee in december 2023, there was no indication in advance that the session would turn out to be such a consequential moment in the recent history of american higher education. in response to questions about campus antisemitism from rep. elise stefanik (r n.y.), the three presidents claudine gay from harvard university, sally kornbluth from the massachusetts institute of technology, and liz magill from the university of pennsylvania offered halting, legalistic responses. weeks of controversy followed, along with an outpouring of criticism aimed not only at the three presidents but at higher education in general, criticism that quickly moved far beyond the narrow question of who was allowed to say what on these elite campuses. both magill and gay stepped down, and many in higher education including administrators, faculty, and trustees felt caught off guard by how quickly the conflagration had ignited and by how few defenders american colleges and universities seemed to have in their corner once the fire began to spread. in retrospect, though, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. throughout the twentieth century and well into the twenty first, higher education was one of the nation’s most respected institutions. for much of that era, only a minority of young people attended college, but most americans even those who never set foot on a university campus saw higher education as an important positive force in civic life. in recent years, though, those positive feelings have been eroding. a little less than a decade ago, public opinion polls began to show signs that americans were turning against college as an institution. in a 2015 pew survey, two thirds of americans said that higher education was having a positive impact on the country; by 2019, that portion had fallen to half. in 2015, gallup reported that 57 percent of americans said they had at least “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education; last summer, only 38 percent of americans said the same. as public opinion soured, undergraduate enrollment fell. in 2016, 70 percent of high school graduates were going straight to college; today, just 62 percent of new high school graduates are doing so. the total undergraduate population in the united states has shrunk significantly in recent years, from 18 million students in 2010 to 15.5 million in 2021. back in the obama years, an ambitious, even idealistic attitude pervaded much of higher education. major projects launched by the white house, by nonprofits, and by foundations sought to dramatically increase the number of americans who were graduating from college. today, many of those initiatives have stalled or failed outright. in 2009, president obama pledged that by 2020, the united states would once again lead the world in the share of its young people graduating from college. in fact, we remain stuck around twelfth place internationally. in 2008, the lumina foundation set a goal to increase the share of young people with a college credential by more than 20 percentage points by 2025. with that deadline only months away, we are less than halfway to that goal. other initiatives that began during that optimistic moment aimed not just at trying to boost college graduation numbers overall but at improving equity in higher education as well. beginning in 2016, more than a hundred selective colleges banded together in a well funded project called the american talent initiative that pledged to vastly increase the number of low income students attending and graduating from the country’s most prestigious universities. the goal was to boost the number of such students enrolled at high graduation rate institutions by 50,000 before 2025. instead, since 2017, the data have been moving in the wrong direction: elite colleges have been admitting fewer low income students each successive year. as a result, american higher education is now more divided than ever by students’ family income: our nation’s most well funded universities have come to seem more and more like exclusive clubs for the children of high income families, while working class and low income students are increasingly relegated to colleges that have fewer resources and lower graduation rates. when you ask young americans what is holding them back from succeeding in higher education, their answers usually have to do with money. in 2022, the gates foundation underwrote a series of focus groups and national surveys of high school graduates who had not yet chosen to enroll in college. when students were asked for the number one reason they hadn’t pursued a degree, they said it was because college was too expensive.1 if they were able to go to college, they were asked, what would be their chief goal? to be able to make more money. and what intervention would be most valuable in helping them complete a degree? anything that would allow them to avoid debt. this growing concern about cost and value can be seen not just among those who haven’t enrolled in college it’s apparent among college grads as well. a 2022 survey by the strada education foundation found that a third of recent college graduates believe that their degree was not worth the cost, with black graduates and first generation graduates being more likely than others to say that their investment in college wasn’t worth it.2 to many in higher education, these numbers have come as surprising and distressing news. for a long time, a bedrock belief among college educators and administrators has been that a college degree is almost always worth the investment of time and money and indeed, that a degree pays off even more for those who grow up in disadvantaged circumstances than it does for those who grow up with more privilege. this institutional faith in the value of a college degree is, in certain important ways, supported by the data. the college wage premium the term economists use for the financial advantage enjoyed by college graduates is as high as it ever has been. on average, a typical american college graduate with a b.a. and no further degree earns two thirds more than a typical high school graduate. by that measure, a college degree still does pay off, in a big way. but those graduates who told the strada foundation’s poll takers that their degree hadn’t paid off were not necessarily miscalculating. recent research in economics has found that the financial value of a college degree has become much less reliable, and more variable, than it was in the past. a few decades ago, a b.a. offered students a fairly predictable, stable salary boost. now, some b.a. holders are making a mint, while many others are really struggling. douglas webber, an economist with the federal reserve board, has conducted some of the most significant research on this question, most of it done while he was a professor at temple university. a college degree still pays off for many students, webber found, but students’ return on investment (roi) depends heavily on a variety of factors, from the college major they choose to the tuition they pay to their own demographic profile. “while the expected return to attending college remains high,” webber wrote in a 2021 paper, “the downside risk (driven largely by student debt and a high degree of noncompletion) is also nontrivial. as in many other contexts, the burden of this risk is not shared equally across the population but is shouldered most acutely by students from low income backgrounds, particularly among underrepresented minority groups.”3 the greatest financial burden, webber and a colleague explained in a separate paper published last year, is experienced by the millions of young americans who enroll in college, go into debt to pay for it, and leave without a degree.4 (about 40 percent of american undergraduates enroll but never finish, and they come disproportionately from lower income families.) those non completers, webber found, go on to do worse, on average, than high school graduates who never attended college at all. in many cases, their financial situation is quite dire: two thirds of adults with student debt and no degree told the federal reserve’s researchers that it would be difficult for them to cover a $400 expense. webber’s data illuminates the cracks that are emerging in the “attainment agenda” that has dominated higher education policy and practice over the last decade. while improving attainment overall remains a crucial national goal, increasing the number of american college graduates alone is no longer sufficient to maintain higher education’s position as an engine of social mobility and economic competitiveness. the next step for the field may be to address the gaps in the system that are allowing so many young people to enroll and even to graduate without a clear path toward financial stability and career opportunity. a college degree in the united states was once a reliable guarantee of a comfortable middle class life. a generation or two ago, it didn’t matter so much what you studied in college or even how well you performed. if you made it through four years, a good job would likely be waiting for you. as a result, college administrators in that era didn’t worry too much about students’ roi; indeed, for many administrators and faculty members, roi was a foreign concept. somehow, success would just magically happen for students: you go to college, read some books, work some equations, attend some parties, and then graduate into a stable, secure adult life. for many students today, however, that idyllic arrangement no longer seems within reach. the opportunities available to b.a. holders have grown more precarious and uncertain, while the cost of attending college has sharply increased. over the last three decades, at four year colleges, the sticker tuition price adjusted for inflation has doubled, and over the last twenty years, the total student debt carried by americans has more than tripled. given the shifts underway in both the economy and in public opinion, institutions of higher education in the united states now face both a threat and an opportunity. the risks for administrators and trustees in the next few years include shrinking enrollment, significant financial challenges, and more intense political and legislative scrutiny and opposition. the opportunity is to face these risks head on to address the very real problems that are at the root of this growing public discontent. students and their families want results from higher education that, for many, higher education is not currently delivering. but that shortfall is not inevitable. there are policies and practices that could significantly shift the relationship that colleges have with their current and prospective students changes that could improve the public standing of higher education by improving the actual experience of students, families, and community members. below are five suggestions on how that shift might begin. 1. take student concerns about cost more seriously. there are a number of competing theories for why the cost of college has increased so sharply over the last thirty years. much of the responsibility certainly lies with state governments, which between 1980 and 2015 cut the amount spent on public higher education relative to personal income nearly in half. as states reduced their support of public colleges and universities, where more than three quarters of all college students were enrolled, more and more of the financial burden fell to students and their families. increased borrowing and debt followed. those funding cuts created problems for students that went beyond rising tuition. to boost revenue, state flagships often increased their recruitment of out of state and international students, making those colleges less accessible to state residents. (the university of vermont now enrolls more freshmen from massachusetts than from vermont.) meanwhile, at less selective public colleges, including community colleges, per student spending fell, which often led to significant cuts in the student services and support systems that many undergraduates depended on to help them reach graduation. during this same era, private universities embraced the principles of enrollment management, a set of innovative practices pioneered in the 1970s by jack maguire, then the dean of admissions at boston college. maguire was among the first to realize that admissions and aid policies could have an enormous impact on a college’s financial health. by targeting selected students with strategically deployed financial aid, maguire was able to boost the bottom line at boston college. in subsequent decades, maguire’s innovations spread, and along the way they were turbocharged by the boom in information technology. now, after waves of expansion and consolidation, a handful of giant corporations dominate the field of enrollment management, all of them deploying advanced data analytics and sophisticated prediction software to help colleges precisely identify, admit, and enroll the students they desire most. but those innovations have come at a cost one that both colleges and students are now paying. enrollment management benefited early adopter colleges when just a few of them were using maguire’s techniques to vanquish the competition. now that nearly every college uses the same tools, enrollment management has become, for many colleges, a self defeating trap. the algorithms at the heart of the business inevitably push colleges to admit a greater number of affluent students and fewer working class students while compelling colleges to offer those rich kids greater discounts, in the form of “merit aid,” to entice them to attend. that leaves colleges less able to offer genuine need based aid, which means that middle class and working class students, when they are admitted, are often saddled with unmanageable tuition expenses and towering debt. according to the basic logic of budgeting, colleges could improve their financial health by reducing their expenses. yet the logic of enrollment management dictates that colleges continually spend more, especially on the student amenities that affluent applicants seem to desire. the wall street journal calculated last year that the price of even the lower cost dorm rooms on american college campuses has gone up an average of 70 percent, adjusted for inflation, over the last 20 years, while the price for the more luxurious dorm rooms has increased even faster.5 spa like gyms and hotel style dorms may appeal to the wealthy students that colleges are competing for. but non affluent students and their families are not looking for luxury; they are looking for value. the colleges that find their way out of the enrollment management trap first that figure out how to genuinely cut costs, significantly reduce tuition, and deliver a good quality education for less will not only win public support but may also discover an untapped pool of applicants who are as tired of the enrollment management game as many admissions officers are. 2. be more transparent about costs and benefits. for many high school seniors and their families, the choice of which college to attend and whether to attend at all is one of the most consequential financial decisions they will ever face. it is also often one of the most bewildering. the questions at the heart of this choice are as urgent as the answers are elusive: how much is this really going to cost? and how much will it benefit me in the end? for prospective students and their parents, the difficulty of calculating costs, affordability, and expected benefits further erodes their trust in higher education. one straightforward reform that would help applicants and their families would be to make financial aid award letters clearer and more transparent. a 2018 analysis of award letters from more than 900 colleges by new america found that many of the aid offers were vague, unclear, or misleading.6 more than a third of the letters didn’t include any information on the actual price students would pay, making it impossible for applicants to understand the aid they were being offered. a 2022 study by the federal government accountability office found that more than 90 percent of award offers either did not provide an estimate of the net price admitted students would pay or understated the price by excluding important expenses.7 most colleges have also been found to “front load” their financial aid, offering significantly more grant aid to first year students and then reducing those awards in future years.8 because of this pattern, high school seniors are often unable to get a realistic sense of their full four year expense burden, and as a result, they sometimes commit to colleges they can’t afford. eliminating front loading and fixing award letters would be relatively simple reforms. the more complex though arguably more necessary change would be to give students more clarity not only on the costs of college, but also on the future benefits. a variety of new initiatives are underway to provide prospective students with a clearer and more realistic sense of how enrolling in different colleges and pursuing different degree paths might realistically pay off for them after graduation. at the think tank third way, michael itzkowitz developed a metric called the price to earnings premium that indicates how long it will take a typical student in a given degree program to recoup the expense of that education.9 separately, a new group called the postsecondary commission is proposing reforms that would require institutions to offer prospective students detailed information on the economic outcomes experienced by their graduates. 3. offer students more flexibility. in a 2022 survey conducted by the strada education foundation, adults without a b.a. degree identified one factor that would be most likely to incline them to enroll in college: a flexible schedule.10 in an earlier era, most students who went to college started right after high school, attended full time for four consecutive years, and graduated into the workforce. today, however, many students and prospective students have jobs or families or both, and they want more flexibility in how and when they pursue their degree. too many institutions have been slow to respond to that demand. in theory, one of the most cost effective ways for a student to earn a four year degree is to enroll first at a local community college and then, after completing two years of study, to transfer to a b.a. program at a four year institution. in reality, however, this pathway rarely works out well for students. according to federal data, only about one in eight students who enroll full time in community college go on to receive a bachelor’s degree within six years. among first generation and low income students, the figure is about one in twelve. part of the problem is the obstacles that many four year colleges put in the way of students who want to transfer credits they have earned from community college. as miguel cardona, the federal education secretary, said last fall, “our current higher education system stacks the deck against community college students who aspire to earn four year degrees.”11 a recent study done at the city university of new york found that graduates of the system’s community colleges who transferred to a b.a. program elsewhere lost, on average, the equivalent of a full semester of work because of credits that didn’t transfer.12 enrollment. governing boards typically approve strategic plans and have oversight of tuition and fees, fundraising priorities, financial aid policies, and enrollment management. these choices should reflect the institution’s mission and values. institutional aid is an important tool in an enrollment strategy, as are admissions policies and practices, and should reflect the institution’s values. boards should receive and monitor relevant data, disaggregated by student demographics, and seek to understand who is admitted and who succeeds at their institutions and at what cost. a good resource for boards is understanding enrollment management (agb, 2020; https://agb.org/product/understanding enrollment management/.) advising. advising about program choices and career pathways early in the college experience can help students make informed decisions that avoid lost time and credits. clear pathways and targeted aid can also increase the likelihood that students leave with both a degree and more manageable debt. see “measuring student success beyond completion,” by david tobenkin, which describes ways to use advising to improve completion rates. pathways. college leaders and state coordinating boards can promote or pursue articulation agreements between two  and four year colleges. presidents and boards are key players in these decisions at the institutional level. guided pathways for programs of study can open doors for successful community college students to enter selective bachelor’s degree programs, such as the maryland transfer advantage program at the university of maryland for engineering. [https://admissions.umd.edu/apply/maryland transfer advantage program.] internships. boards should understand who benefits from high impact experiences at their institutions and consider appropriate goals and metrics. for example, board dashboards with disaggregated data on student participation in internships (paid or unpaid, pell eligible, student race/ethnicity, and other factors) can identify inequities and needs, and inform fundraising priorities. board members of a college or institutionally related foundation may also have corporate connections that can extend the network of paid internship placements. alignment. higher education needs to address the misalignment between the credentials students earn and those sought by employers for jobs requiring a college education. boards should understand how the administration assesses and addresses the quality and currency of the institution’s program mix, the needs of the community and region, and how well students are prepared for careers that require a college degree. with the institution’s mission as its guiding star, the board and president should periodically review data on the institution’s academic programs informed by data on occupational trends, new credentials, current and anticipated demand, educational quality, and strategy. a board retreat, new strategic plan, institutional reaccreditation self study, or change in institutional leadership are ideal opportunities for the board and administration to consider together questions about the core work of a college or university. this should be an ongoing concern of the board’s academic affairs committee. the good news is that there are some encouraging new partnerships that aim to make the transition more effective. the advance program at northern virginia community college provides a clearly articulated path for students to transfer their credits to george mason university. students enroll in advance at the beginning of their time at the community college and receive personalized coaching designed to make sure that the courses they take will transfer most effectively to george mason. students who are already in the workforce often need a different kind of flexibility: the ability to attend school on their own schedule and to make progress at their own pace sometimes slower than typical students, and sometimes faster. students at duet, a boston based nonprofit that works in partnership with southern new hampshire university to offer students low cost associate and bachelor’s degrees, enjoy an unusual degree of flexibility. they progress through a project based curriculum on their own timetable, getting help remotely from university instructors and in person from duet coaches at a dedicated study space in downtown boston. the typical duet student completes an associate degree in 18 months.13 in a separate initiative, a dozen universities, including georgetown, have formed a new partnership to design a streamlined, three year bachelor’s program in which students would receive a bachelor’s degree after completing 100 or fewer credit hours. so far, no accreditor has signed on, but a few have signaled that they are open to the idea of this kind of experimentation.14 4. build better pathways to the jobs students want. one of the best ways for students to improve their career trajectory after graduation is to engage in some kind of work related learning during college. graduates who did so report higher career satisfaction and a greater sense that their education was worth the cost. employers agree: in a 2023 survey, they said that internship experience was the number one attribute they looked for when choosing between two equally qualified candidates. that extra attention from employers often pays off for job seekers: on average, a paid internship in college leads to a $3,000 salary boost a year out of school.15 but there is an important distinction within this research. whereas paid internships produce a clear financial benefit for college students, unpaid internships and other work based learning experiences on average do not. and though more than 80 percent of college students take part in some form of work based learning, only 29 percent have a paid internship during college. what’s more, those paid internships are not evenly distributed. thirty seven percent of white male students have a paid internship in college, compared with just 20 percent of black male students. affluent students are 7 percentage points more likely to have paid internships than pell eligible students, and students with college educated parents are 10 percentage points more likely to land a paid internship than first generation students. a handful of organizations are trying to address these inequities. braven, a nonprofit based in chicago, enrolls hundreds of students each year at seven colleges around the country in a credit bearing course that teaches precisely the kind of job seeking and networking skills that students entering college say they want from their time on campus. students enrolled in the braven course practice their interviewing skills, improve their resumes, and strategize how to leverage and expand their personal networks all of which lead to significant improvements in job placement after graduation.16 other colleges have sought out collaborations with employers to better align their course offerings with the needs of local labor markets. in tennessee, blue cross blue shield and east tennessee state university introduced a program in 2022 called the bluesky tennessee institute to train graduates of high schools in the chattanooga area to fill in demand jobs in technology and analytics. the university offers students an accelerated path to a b.s. degree in computing that comes complete with a job offer from blue cross blue shield. the degree path is intense but efficient, requiring just twenty seven months to complete. 5. expand the definition of campus diversity. much of the current national political battle over higher education has focused on the question of diversity. the 2023 supreme court decision on affirmative action put new constraints on admissions departments and administrators seeking to diversify their student bodies. yet there is a paradox at the heart of this controversy: over the last several years, as selective colleges and universities made efforts to improve the racial and cultural diversity of their campuses, the student population at many colleges became less diverse in terms of socioeconomics and political ideology. as mentioned earlier, the number of lower income students enrolled at high graduation rate colleges has fallen since 2017. at the same time, the nation’s political alignment in terms of educational attainment in the united states has changed. voters with more years of education have been trending toward the left, while non college voters have shifted right. on many campuses, meanwhile, left leaning politics have become more dominant than ever. according to one recent survey, twice as many college freshmen now say they are liberal or left wing as say they are conservative or right wing.17 among faculty, the ratio is five to one; that imbalance has grown from a two to one ratio in the mid 1990s.18 as a result, if you’re a working class kid from a small town in rural america whose parents didn’t go to college, campuses today may not feel particularly welcoming. a few years ago, while i was reporting my most recent book, the inequality machine, i spent a lot of time in rural communities, from western north carolina to central pennsylvania to the rio grande valley, where i spoke with high school seniors, their families, and their college counselors. many high achieving students told me they wanted to go away to college, but a good quality college education often seemed to them and their parents like an unattainable goal. all around them, they could see examples of young people who went off to college only to return without graduating, discouraged and in debt. many of the high school seniors i spoke with decided that college just wasn’t worth the emotional effort or the expense. in the years since, the personal disenfranchisement i have heard among students and their families has hardened, in some communities, into political anger directed at higher education. (public support for colleges and universities has declined much more sharply since 2015 among republicans than among democrats.) this skepticism toward higher education is a problem for those communities, where jobs and other opportunities for young people are often scarce. but it also seems like a problem for higher education. that growing sense of alienation is directly feeding the political headwinds that many college leaders now face. colleges today know better than ever how to recruit and admit the students they want, and there are plenty of ways to increase the number and diversity of low income students on a college campus. a 2023 paper by a group of economists led by raj chetty at harvard identified common private college admissions practices that benefit high income students, including favoring the children of alumni and giving admission advantages to athletes in sports that are dominated by private school students.19 early admission also has been shown to give a leg up to wealthy applicants, who can commit to a college without needing to compare financial aid offers. ending those three practices would go a long way toward increasing socioeconomic diversity on campus. but this is unlikely to happen without a genuine commitment by leaders in higher education, including trustees, to the idea that making their campuses more broadly diverse and welcoming is a true priority. these five strategies are not the complete answer to higher education’s current moment of crisis. colleges still face funding shortfalls, a demographic cliff, and labor unrest, among other challenges. but any solution has to start from an awareness that there is a growing disconnect between what young people and their families want from higher education and what the nation’s colleges and universities are delivering. effectively addressing that disconnect could help restore the sense of esteem and respect that higher education enjoyed in the united states not so long ago. paul tough is a contributing writer for the new york times magazine and the author of four books including, most recently, the inequality machine: how college divides us. endnotes 1. edge research, “exploring the exodus from higher education” (may 2022). 2. strada education network, “value beyond the degree: alumni perspectives on how college experiences improve their lives” (november 16, 2022). 3. douglas a. webber, “a growing divide: the promise and pitfalls of higher education for the working class,” annals of the american academy of political and social science (august 23, 2021). 4. jacob lockwood and douglas webber, “non completion, student debt, and financial well being: evidence from the survey of household economics and decisionmaking,” feds notes (august 21, 2023). 5. melissa korn and shane shifflett, “swimming pools and granite countertops: how college dorms got so expensive,” wall street journal (december 20, 2023). 6. stephen burd, rachel fishman, laura keane, and julie habbert, “decoding the cost of college: the case for transparent financial aid award letters,” new america and uaspire (june 2018). 7. u.s. government accountability office, “financial aid offers: action needed to improve information on college costs and student aid” (december 5, 2022). 8. laura beamer, “how schools lie,” phenomenal world (september 1, 2021). 9. michael itzkowitz, “price to earnings premium: a new way of measuring return on investment in higher ed,” third way (april 1, 2020). 10. strada education network, “education expectations: views on the value of college and likelihood to enroll” (june 15, 2022). 11. carolyn thompson, “few community college students go on to earn 4 year degrees. some states have found ways to help,” associated press (november 9, 2023). 12. collin binkley, “‘waste of time’: community college transfers derail students,” associated press (may 2, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/bachelor degree community college transfer credits cec0154f260c130fbbfcb593de77e4da. 13. john gabrieli, martin west, and katherine larned et al., “college re imagined: can a new model help close higher education’s equity gap?” working paper, harvard kennedy school (october 2021). 14. josh moody, “the push for a 3 year bachelor’s degree,” inside higher ed (april 7, 2023). 15. nichole torpey saboe, elaine leigh, and dave clayton, “the power of work based learning,” strada education network (2022). 16. “empowering the next generation of leaders,” braven, n.d., https://braven.org/. 17. ellen bara stolzenberg, melissa aragon, edgar romo, victoria couch, destiny mclennan, kevin eagan, and nathaniel kang, “the american freshman: national norms fall 2019,” higher education research institute (2020). 18. ellen bara stolzenberg, kevin eagan, hilary zimmerman, jennifer berdan lozano, natacha cesar davis, melissa aragon, and cecilia rios aguilar, “undergraduate teaching faculty: the heri faculty survey 2016 17,” higher education research institute (2019); linda j. sax, alexander astin, marisol arredondo, and william korn, “the american college teacher: national norms for the 1995 96 heri faculty survey” (september 1996). 19. raj chetty, david deming, and john friedman, “diversifying society’s leaders? the determinants and causal effects of admission to highly selective private colleges,” opportunity insights (october 2023). trusteeship magazine article the new “r” in enrollment management book understanding enrollment management: a guide for college and university board members reports and statements the promise of higher education > careers support agb media queries privacy policy © 2025 agb   all rights reserved.

khaleda rahman is newsweek's national correspondent based in london, uk. her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual abuse and capital punishment. khaleda joined newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the mailonline in london, new york and sydney. she is a graduate of university college london. languages: english. you can get in touch with khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. jordan reconnu, 23, of dallas, texas, has no regrets about not getting a college degree. during the one semester of college she attended after graduating from high school in 2019, she felt like she wasn't learning anything new. the idea of continuing did not appeal to her, and realizing how much her college education would end up costing, she quit and now works as a manager of a fast food restaurant. more from newsweek vault: find the most affordable online colleges "i wasn't thrilled with taking basic classes for two years and wasting even more money going to the same classes that we covered in high school," she tells newsweek. higher education would not have improved her career prospects, she said, adding that she feels it is only worth pursuing for those hoping to work in fields that require it. "i feel like experience is what makes people marketable," she said. her mother, jacque abron, agrees with the sentiment. more from newsweek vault: best online computer science programs abron earned a college degree before becoming a teacher, but she is glad her daughter won't be saddled with student debt that for her has soared to more than $100,000 with added interest over the years. college is "overrated," abron tells newsweek. "i don't see the use of a degree in this day and age. employers are demanding higher education, and they serve no purpose." reconnu and abron are among many americans who have little faith in the value of a college degree, seeing universities as places where political agendas are pushed and where students are not taught the skills they need to succeed in life, but put on a path to a lifetime of oppressive debt. according to a recent gallup survey, a growing proportion of americans are losing confidence in higher education. the survey, released in july, found that only about a third (36 percent) of americans said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, while 32 percent said they had little or no confidence. the numbers are significantly down from a decade ago, when 57 percent reported having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education and only 10 percent said they had little or none. for those who said they had very little or no confidence, 41 percent talked about colleges being "too liberal" or trying to "indoctrinate" or "brainwash" students. some 37 percent were critical of colleges not teaching relevant skills or graduates not being able to find employment, while 23 percent cited concerns about cost, such as the hefty price tag for tuition or the mounting debt that follows those who can't afford to pursue a degree without taking out student loans. another survey, conducted by eab, formerly the education advisory board, found that parents of students applying to college were most concerned about college costs (60 percent), receiving scholarships (40 percent) and the amount of student debt (39 percent). after that, their biggest concern was for the safety of their children on campuses, a concern that was higher for families of color. some parents would also prefer their children get some life experience by getting a job, pursuing vocational training, starting a business or doing community service instead of going straight into higher education. about 46 percent of parents said in a 2021 gallup survey that they would prefer their children not enroll in a four year college immediately after high school. abron said she would urge her other children, aged 4 and 12, to "check out trade schools or invest in other ways to build wealth." but ultimately, she said it would "come down to what they decide to do for their career and the requirements necessary." but some good jobs don't require a degree, either. aria razfar, a professor at the university of illinois at chicago's college of education, notes that some young people are seeking in demand jobs in the booming technology industry where a college education isn't always a requirement. "over the last decade there has been a significant shift in access to knowledge as well as a shift in industry expectations," he tells newsweek. "the rise of the tech industry, with less reliance on college certification, has led to many generation z students and their families wondering whether they really need a college education." new america's 2024 varying degrees survey found that a majority (63 percent) of young americans in generation z agree that there are plenty of well paying stable jobs for people with just a high school diploma. however, many more agreed that it would be easier for those with some kind of college degree. some companies are dropping requirements for a bachelor's degree, a reflection of how more hiring managers are valuing skills and experience over education and wanting to attract more diverse talent. one in three companies in the u.s. say they have eliminated bachelor's degree requirements from some positions in 2024, according to a survey of 750 u.s, businesses by intelligent, a college preparation company. while the majority (59 percent) did so for entry level positions, 54 percent removed degree requirements for mid level roles and 18 percent for senior level roles. "eliminating bachelor's degree requirements from the hiring and recruiting process is becoming increasingly popular across many industries," says huy nguyen, intelligent's chief education and career development advisor. "the trend shift shows a broader recognition that practical skills, real world work experiences and the ability to self learn can be more important measures of potential success than four years of formal college education in many job functions." by removing degree requirements, nguyen says companies "gain access to larger and more diverse pools of talent, especially when looking to fill roles in industries facing labor shortages or seeking specialized skills that students may not have learned in college." sean reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at stanford university, tells newsweek that it is striking "not just that confidence in higher education has declined, but that it has declined in an era when the economic value of a college degree remains very high." in the 1950s and 1960s, those without a college degree could find good jobs in manufacturing or the auto industry, for instance, he said. however, "our labor market is very different now most well paid jobs require a four year degree or more; without such a degree, one is likely to find only low pay work," he said. "so you'd think folks would see much more value in higher education." according to the u.s. bureau of labor statistics, those with a bachelor's degree earn about 65 percent more per week than those with just a high school diploma. furthermore, unemployment rates among high school graduates are almost twice as high as those who have a college degree. and despite the decreased confidence in higher education, college enrollment numbers have been going up over the past year. colleges nationwide saw undergraduate enrollment plummet during the covid 19 pandemic. but while undergraduate enrollment figures remain behind pre pandemic levels, they increased this spring and last fall, according to the latest report from the national student clearinghouse. more than half of the growth was due to community colleges, but the report said enrollment at public and private nonprofit four year institutions also grew this spring after years of decline. "if people are increasingly unhappy with higher education, they aren't showing it in their actions," reardon said. "that pattern further suggests that unhappiness with higher education is a symbolic position, and maybe not a deeply held one." however, the most obvious reason for the erosion of faith in higher education over the past decade is economic, razfar said. funding for public higher education has declined significantly since the 2008 recession, he said, shifting the financial burden to students and families. "this has also put significantly more pressure on institutions of higher education to focus on raising funds and private donors rather than holistic student development," he said. "this has led to an erosion of the arts and humanities in favor of more revenue generating fields like stem. universities have ironically become less humane," he said. "thus, students and their families have serious concerns about 'return on investment.'" molly blythe doerner, 45, said her two degrees a bachelor's degree in art & media arts from the university of montana and a master's degree in counseling & art therapy from southwestern college in santa fe, new mexico were "painfully" earned while working part time jobs and taking out the maximum student loans possible. she previously worked with adolescents in a therapeutic boarding school but is now working at an amazon fulfillment center in mississippi. her student debt has soared to more than $150,000. she has lost her faith in higher education because it is "historically designed for purposes of privilege and profit," she tells newsweek. "i believe there is faith to be found in the millions of people who also took the same bait, to follow their dreams, to learn, or to succeed, only to find themselves in worse positions than they may have been when they began." abron would not recommend anyone go to college if they have to get loans "due to the predatory and life draining cycle of student loans," she said. "it's a debt that follows you to the grave." on the opposite end of the spectrum, brooke schwartz, a 23 year old from new york state, tells newsweek that she feels her college education is well worth it. she graduated with a bachelor's degree from the university of michigan and is now studying at the fordham university school of law. "higher education allows students to learn about and examine different industries and helps students to develop an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset," she tells newsweek. "while the costs associated with education are on the rise and quite considerable, i would not have been able to pursue my passion to be an attorney without my undergraduate and graduate degrees." judi hayes, of orlando, florida, is also confident that a college education is worth it, though she acknowledges that it is becoming increasingly unattainable for many americans. hayes, 51, graduated from florida state university and worked as an attorney full time before moving to part time work after having children. now, she is focused on getting her eldest a high school junior into college, possibly an ivy league institution. "i'm still highly confident in education but that comes from a position of privilege and as the parent of a very bright child who will probably enter a field that requires a degree," she tells newsweek. "the paradigm has shifted so far from when i was his age in the late '80s, and you could fall a** backward into a great public education at a price that wouldn't leave you beholden for decades." among parents, there's a "huge dichotomy between the people who can afford higher education and the ones who can't, but feel compelled to mortgage their futures for it," she said. some of the declining faith in higher education stems from universities becoming flashpoints in the nation's culture wars. confidence in higher education has dropped most among republicans, the 2024 gallup survey found. while only 11 percent of republicans reported having little or no confidence in higher education in 2015, that number is now 50 percent. republican lawmakers have been moving to defund or ban diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at universities, saying the programs are discriminatory and promote left wing ideology. opponents say the programs are necessary to ensure higher education institutions meet the needs of diverse student populations. some administrators consider such factors when admitting students, deciding which faculty members to hire and promote or when issuing scholarships. the decline in confidence "is the result of political polarization and the portrayal of colleges and universities as elitist by populist politicians and populist aligned media," reardon said. todd wolfson, the president of the american association of university professors, tells newsweek that declining confidence in higher education can be linked to the far right's "relentless campaign to demonize and delegitimize the teachers, researchers and students on our campuses. as these polls have shown, their cynical and dangerous propaganda is working." higher education has given americans the chance "to transform their lives and have more security than their parents," wolfson said. "higher education is a pillar of our democracy. it leads to critical thinking, an educated citizenry and a better, clearer understanding of the world around us. we have to ask ourselves, why would some want to destroy that?" israel's ongoing war with hamas "has exposed some of the core deficiencies of today's elite higher education institutions," university of illinois' razfar argues. "rather than creating productive, public conversation around core ideological and identity issues, they have cultivated, in the perception of many, greater polarization." there has been a "serious shift in perception as to whether or not universities are prioritizing the public good over private and sectarian interests," he argues. "this is an absolute nail in the coffin for the future viability of higher education." this spring, colleges across the country were roiled by protests against the war, leaving universities struggling to grapple with how to balance free speech rights with protection from discrimination amid rises in antisemitism and islamophobia on campus. with students now returning to colleges, some schools are adopting rules to limit the protests that roiled campuses earlier this year. the american association of university professors has warned that enacting "overly restrictive policies" could discourage free expression. michael thaddeus, a professor of mathematics at columbia and the vice president of the columbia chapter of the aaup, tells newsweek that "fostering debate is what universities should be all about." he adds: "it's a great strength of american society in contrast to russia and china, for example that our universities serve as forums where basic disagreements can be aired. in an increasingly polarized society, it may make some people dislike us, but that's a price worth paying." as american society "becomes more and more splintered and polarized, it becomes harder and harder to please everyone," he adds. "still, we in the academy remain convinced of the enduring value of a liberal arts education, which teaches students to think critically, reason logically, and write clearly. the very trends that are making universities less popular are also making higher education more vitally important than ever." khaleda rahman is newsweek's national correspondent based in london, uk. her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual abuse and capital punishment. khaleda joined newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the mailonline in london, new york and sydney. she is a graduate of university college london. languages: english. you can get in touch with khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com khaleda rahman is newsweek's national correspondent based in london, uk. her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual abuse and capital punishment. khaleda joined newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the mailonline in london, new york and sydney. she is a graduate of university college london. languages: english. you can get in touch with khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com khaleda rahman is newsweek's national correspondent based in london, uk. her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual ... read more newsletters in your inbox see all company editions: contact terms of use © 2025 newsweek digital llc

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supported by students across america are asking whether college is worth it. we want to know why you decided that it was   or wasn’t   a good choice to attend. by jeanna smialek jeanna smialek is an economics reporter who is working on an article about the shifting u.s. labor market. polls, enrollment statistics, social media posts and education economists agree: we are seeing a growing skepticism of college among many american teenagers and their parents. whether that is a short term trend spurred by a strong job market with plentiful opportunities or a longer term change will be important for the future of the work force. it could also shape economic mobility, inequality and other facets of the economy in the years ahead. that is why we want to hear from people who have graduated high school in the past several years or who are graduating in 2025. how are you thinking about your decision to attend college? what factors mattered to you, what did you decide, and how will you determine whether you are happy with your decision? i will read every response to this questionnaire as i’m researching my article, because i’m looking for a wide array of perspectives to inform my reporting. i will reach out to you if it makes sense to include your example, because i want to make sure to get the details right. i will not publish your response without following up with you first. i will not use your contact information for anything but my reporting, and i won’t share it outside our newsroom. please fill out this form only if you are 14 or older. if you are between the ages of 14 and 17, a reporter will ask to get in touch with your parent or guardian before talking with you further. are you attending a college or university? do you think higher education is worth it? jeanna smialek covers the federal reserve and the economy for the times from washington. more about jeanna smialek

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