Americans have turned sour on one of the longtime key elements of the American dream.
Nearly two-thirds of registered voters say a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, a dramatic decline over the past decade, according to a new poll from NBC News.
Only 33% agree that a four-year college degree “is worth the cost because people have a better chance of getting a good job and earning more money over their lifetime”, while 63% agree more with the concept that it is “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with large amounts of debt to repay.”
In 2017, American adults surveyed were nearly split on this question – 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it was not. When CNBC asked the same question as part of its All American Economic Survey in 2013, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not worth it.
The staggering transformation over the past 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the world of education, from the rising prices of college tuition to the rapid changes in the modern economy – which is once again poised for radical change alongside advances in AI.
“It’s remarkable to see such a dramatic change in stance on any issue, and especially on the central tenet of the American dream, which is a college degree. Americans used to view a college degree as something to aspire to — it offers the opportunity for a better life. And now that promise is really in doubt,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“What’s really surprising about it is that everyone has moved in. It’s not just people who don’t have a college degree,” Horwitt said.
National data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that people with advanced degrees earn more and have lower unemployment rates than people with lower education levels. This has been true for years.
But what has changed is the cost of college. While there have been some small declines in tuition prices over the past decade, when adjusted for inflation, College Board data shows that the average, inflation-adjusted cost of public four-year college tuition for in-state students has doubled since 1995. Tuition at private, four-year colleges has increased 75% over the same period.
Survey respondents who spoke with NBC News emphasized rising costs as a major reason for cutting the value of a four-year degree.
Jacob Kennedy, a 28-year-old server and bartender who lives in Detroit, told NBC News that although he believes “an educated population is the most important thing for a country,” if people can’t access those degrees because of debt, it diminishes the value.
Kennedy, who has a two-year degree, noted “the number of people working in the service industry who have a four-year degree and then immediately leave their ‘adult jobs’ within a year of graduating and go back to the jobs they had.”
He added, “The cost outweighs the value.” “You go to school with all that student loan debt – the jobs coming out of college don’t pay off that debt, so you have to find something else that can pay off that debt.”
A 20-point decline over the past 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected in nearly every demographic group. But the change in sentiment is particularly striking among Republicans.
In 2013, 55% of Republicans said a college degree was worth it, while 38% said it was not worth it. In the new survey, only 22% of Republicans say a four-year degree is worth it, while 74% say it is not worth it.
Democrats have also seen a significant change, but not to the same extent — a drop from 61% who said the degree was worth it in 2013 to 47% this year.
Over the same period, the composition of both parties has changed, with the Republican Party gaining new and deeper support from voters without a college degree, while the Democratic Party has attracted more degree holders.
Notably, less than half of voters with college degrees consider those degrees worth the cost: now 46%, down from 63% in 2013.
In 2013, those without a college degree were divided on this question. Now, 71% say a four-year degree is not worth the cost, while 26% say it is worth it.
Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said the cracks have widened under the long-standing narrative that a college degree is always a serious rift.
“Some people drop out, or sometimes people get a degree that has no value in the labor market, and sometimes people pay much more for the degree than that qualification is worth,” he said. “These cases have created enough exceptions to the rule that a bachelor’s degree always pays, that people are now even more skeptical.”
The result is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has increased.
“I think students are more cautious about taking the risk of a four-year or even a two-year degree,” he said. “They are now more interested in any path that can get them into the labor force more quickly.”
Josiah Garcia, 24, in Virginia, said he recently enrolled in a program to get a four-year engineering degree after working as an electrician’s apprentice. He said he was motivated to go back to school because he saw that the degree would have a direct impact on his future earning potential.
But he also said he doesn’t think people who want other degrees in fields like art or theater can say the same.
“A lot of my friends who went to school for art or dance didn’t get the jobs they thought they could get after graduation,” she said, arguing that degrees for “soft skills” should be cheaper than those for STEM fields.
Jessica Burns, a 38-year-old Iowa resident and bachelor’s degree holder who works for an insurance company, told NBC News that for her, the value of a four-year degree largely depends on the cost.
She went to a community college and then a state school to earn her degree, so she said she graduated without spending an “extreme” amount of money.
But her husband went to a private college for his degree, and she quipped: “We’re going to have student loan debt for him forever.”
Burns said he believes a college degree “is essential for a lot of jobs. You won’t get an interview if you don’t have a four-year degree for a lot of the jobs in my field.”
But they valued degrees based on how society viewed them rather than on intrinsic value.
“It is not valuable because it brings a lot of value added, it is valuable because it is the key to getting in the door,” she said. “Our society needs to understand that if we value it, we need to make it affordable.”
Burns said she believes many people in her Millennial generation “are now saddled with massive amounts of debt, even as successful business professionals,” which will impact how their peers pay for college for their children.
The cost-benefit analysis of a degree has not fallen short. Gallup polling also shows that public confidence in higher education has declined significantly over the past decade, although there has been a slight increase over the past year.
Horwitt said, “It’s a political problem. It’s also a real problem for higher education. Colleges and universities have lost connection with a large group of the American people based on affordability.” “He is now considered out of touch and unreachable to many Americans.”
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters October 24–28, through telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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