Is College Worth It?

Is College Worth It? Answers From Presidents and the Public

By JACQUES STEINBERG

The Pew Research Center has just released a report incorporating two surveys — one of 2,142 adults 18 or older; the other of 1,055 college presidents — each centered on the question, “Is college worth it?”

Pew Research Center

Among the answers:
Fifty-seven percent of those questioned in the survey of members of the public said “the higher education system in the United States fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend,” according to the report. Moreover, three-quarters say “college is too expensive for most Americans to afford.”
One factor behind such opinions is clearly student loan debt: among those questioned by Pew who said they had left college “with a substantial debt burden,” nearly half said such loans made it more difficult to pay other bills and a quarter said their college debts made it harder to buy a home.
And what of the presidents?

Pew Research Center

A majority of those surveyed — 58 percent — “say public high school students arrive at college less well prepared than their counterparts of a decade ago,” according to the report. Meanwhile, nearly four of every 10 presidents — who represent two- and four-year-colleges, and were questioned by Pew in partnership with The Chronicle of Higher Education — said they thought higher education was “headed in the wrong direction.”