More Americans Are Asking If College Is Really Worth It

Seven in 10 adults believe higher education is headed in the wrong direction, according to a new survey.

Students earning degrees at Pasadena City College participate in the graduation ceremony in Pasadena, Calif., on June 14, 2019. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Jessica Iannacchino landed on Madison Avenue in New York City, but a career in her chosen field just wasn’t in the cards.

The 21-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York, attended public colleges in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to complete a bachelor’s in advertising, paying out-of-state tuition and committing to monthly student loan repayments for years to come.

She moved to Manhattan to get her foot in the door somewhere, but none opened.

Iannacchino delivered food to pay the rent and found enjoyable work in acting, appearing in a few small roles. She has several friends who also haven’t secured jobs in their fields and are saddled with sky-high debt from attending Columbia and New York University.

“We moved here for career opportunities and then found everything was so competitive and the job market wasn’t what we thought it would be,” Iannacchino told The Epoch Times. “It’s a lot of financial stress, and you don’t know if you’ll get a break.”

A recent Pew Research Center survey underscores Iannacchino’s situation: Seven in 10 adults say America’s higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56 percent providing that response five years ago. Policy experts, federal lawmakers, and President Donald Trump, all aware of national doubt about whether college is worth the cost, are pushing for more transparency over its return on investment.

“A college degree isn’t what it used to be,” said Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “It’s no longer an automatic ticket to the American Dream and the middle class. It’s been that way for a while now, but public perception is still catching up.”

Why Americans Have Doubts

The Pew survey shows that 79 percent of the 3,445 respondents indicated that colleges and universities are doing an unsatisfactory job of keeping costs affordable, and more than half rated higher education institutions as fair or poor in preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.

The College Board’s most recent “Education Pays” report indicates that 39 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had a bachelor’s degree in 2021, up from 22 percent 40 years prior. It also listed the median income for a four-year degree at $73,300 compared to $44,300 for a high school diploma and $52,100 for an associate’s degree.

However, those figures, commonly cited by high school guidance counselors, are very general and don’t pertain to all programs of study. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published research earlier this year that noted that 23 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 43 percent of master’s degrees had a negative return on investment.

“All universities should strive to uphold the educational Hippocratic oath,” Cooper wrote in his April report. “Students should not be worse off financially for having attended college.”

The Department of Education’s online College Scorecard tool provides median earnings information by degree type, academic major, and institution.

A search of bachelor’s degree programs in sociology, for example, yielded 1,003 colleges and universities that offer the program, but most did not list the median earnings and debt of graduates. One of those that did, Albertus Magnus College, reported median earnings at $42,513 after four years in the sociology program and median student loan debt for that program at $34,360, based on responses from 17 graduates.

In 2020, Gillen reported that more than 3,700 U.S. college degree programs failed a “debt-to-income test,” and at least 7,000 programs were at risk of failing.

Given that more than 100 higher education institutions have closed since then, and millions more students are struggling with student debt, a return-on-investment calculator should, ideally, be available for every major and school in the country based on federal income tax data, not just voluntary responses from graduates, he said.

“It opens the door for a better way to think about college,” he told The Epoch Times.

Federal Attention

Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, offered to several schools across the country, would provide preferred consideration for federal funding if the institution agrees to several conditions related to admissions and hiring practices, institutional neutrality, and affordability and transparency. One of the stipulations is publicly listing the average graduate income by program and major.

A panel of university professors, during an Oct. 28 Heterodox Academy webinar, indicated support for cost controls, transparency, and accountability as proposed in the compact.

“There is an erosion of academic excellence,” said Anna Krylov, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California. “That’s a big problem we need to address.”

In Congress, the bipartisan College Transparency Act was reintroduced in the House and the Senate in late July. If enacted, it would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and “post-collegiate outcomes.”

Republican House members, during a recent subcommittee meeting, said they’re aware of many young constituents in their districts who are burdened with student loan debt and struggle to find decent-paying jobs.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said 21-year-old truck drivers for Walmart in his district make about $135,000 annually, while a cashier with a master’s degree he recently spoke with at a local grocery store is paid close to minimum wage.

“It happens all the time,” he said. “It’s the norm.”

Walmart has stated that a driver for its company can make as much as $110,000 per year.

What’s Ahead for Higher Education?

The population of traditional college-age students in the United States is decreasing. Many schools are struggling financially as their customer base shrinks, and an increasing number are expected to close in the years ahead.

A look at websites for K–12 districts, state university programs, and workforce development partnerships reveals that high school students across the nation have access to college degree credits before they complete their diplomas, which further affects income and enrollment at higher learning institutions. Vocational education and apprenticeship programs are enjoying a resurgence.

Gillen said that even if colleges and universities resist Trump’s push to disclose average graduate incomes by program of study, market forces will eventually exert themselves. Schools can’t afford to maintain “ghost majors” with low enrollments and little return on investment.

“The way colleges are set up, you basically need a crisis to start changing something,” he said. “I think we are going to see that happen.”

Regardless, opportunities exist for those willing to abandon teenage career dreams as adults.

Nathan Sharpe, of Rome, New York, enrolled in Mohawk Valley Community College’s computer science program after seeing an advertisement there touting career prospects for $60,000 per year.

A decade later, Sharpe hadn’t received a single job offer in that field. Instead, he worked his way up from a payment processor to a business analyst at a local bank before taking a job in a copper product manufacturing plant, where he now works as a trained chemist.

“[My degree] was essentially useless outside of the fact that I can brag about being the first in my family to finish any sort of college,” Sharpe told The Epoch Times.

“I will raise my son to lean more toward a skilled trade—plumber, electrician, type of thing. I don’t want him falling into the same mistakes that I did. It set me back years.”