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Only 1 in 5 People Think College Is Worth the Money if You Need Student Loans
By Brad Tuttle MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
More opportunities to earn good money without a bachelor’s degree may be affecting how people perceive college value.
Is college worth the money? Fewer Americans are weighing in with a definitive yes in this never-ending debate, as college costs remain expensive and people without degrees earn higher incomes.
According to a new Pew Research Center poll, only 22% of Americans believe that college is worth the cost if the person has to take out student loans. Nearly half (47%) say that college is worth the money, but only if you don’t need loans, while 29% think college is not worth it, period.
In another sign of the relative value people place on higher education today, 49% of those surveyed by Pew say a college degree is less important to getting a high-paying job than it was 20 years ago. By contrast, only 32% think a college degree is more important for landing a good job compared to 20 years ago and 17% say the level of importance hasn’t changed.
Why sentiment is souring on the value of college
Pew’s new survey data mirrors other research indicating a decrease in people saying college is worth the money. For years, there’s been a general decline in the belief that college pays off, largely due to rising costs and subsequent student loan debt.
Since 2000, average published tuition and fees, even after adjusting for inflation, have increased 46% at private colleges and a whopping 81% at public four-year colleges, according to data from education nonprofit the College Board.
More recently, there’s been growth in opportunities to make a good living without a bachelor’s degree, which seems to also be affecting the relative value people place on college.
“After decades of falling wages, young U.S. workers (ages 25 to 34) without a bachelor’s degree have seen their earnings increase over the past 10 years,” the Pew report explains. “Their overall wealth has gone up too, and fewer are living in poverty today.”
The complication is that while people without college degrees are earning higher income, their college-educated counterparts have been growing their wealth as well, and the gap in earnings and net worth is widening. The median earnings for young men working full time with just a high school education has increased by about $5,700 from 2014 to now, according to Pew data. At the same time, earnings for young men with four-year college degrees rose by $9,500. (Pew’s numbers are in 2022 dollars, adjusted for inflation.)
The trajectories and earnings gaps are similar for women. Median earnings for young women with just a high school education working full time rose roughly $5,100 over the past decade, compared to an increase of almost $10,000 for young women with bachelor’s degrees.
The changes in net worth for different groups is perhaps the best indication of whether or not college pays off. Among households headed by high school grads, median wealth increased from $12,700 in 2013 to $30,700 as of 2022.
That seems like a sizable leap, but it pales in comparison to the net worth growth among households with college degrees: $46,600 to $120,200.
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Brad Tuttle is a senior editor at Money who has covered personal finance for well over 10 years. He became a full-time employee at Money in 2014, after shifting over from sister publication TIME, where he wrote and edited consumer and finance content starting with the Great Recession in 2009. Over the years, Brad has covered a vast array of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, restaurants, consumer banking, the retail industry, shopping and deals and more. Previously, Brad was an editor at Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel and Wondertime magazines, and he has written for Newsweek, Real Simple and The New York Times, among other publications. He is also the author of “The Ellis Island Collection: Artifacts From the Immigrant Experience” (2004) and "How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of an American City" (2009). Originally from New Jersey, Brad is a 1995 graduate of Villanova University, and he received a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism in 2000. He now lives in western Massachusetts and has been a part-time professor for over 10 years in the journalism department at UMass-Amherst.