Key points:
- Key shifts in the labor market have more people questioning the ROI on college
- Here’s a new way to look at the enrollment cliff
- Higher ed continues to see changing enrollment, low confidence
- For more news on college enrollment, visit eCN’s Campus Leadership hub
Students are increasingly questioning the educational return on their financial investments in higher education, and more employers are turning to skills-based hiring, onboarding employees who don’t necessarily need four-year degrees to demonstrate competency.
These new developments lead to what is becoming an age-old question: Is college worth it?
A new Pew Research Center report by Richard Fry, Dana Braga, and Kim Parker explores what’s behind this question.
While wages for U.S. workers ages 25-34 without a bachelor’s degree fell for decades, their earnings have increased in the past decade, as has their overall wealth. Fewer workers in this group are living in poverty. At the same time, young college graduates have also seen improvements, and thus, the gap in earnings between young adults with and without a college degree has not narrowed.
This latest data, along with a number of other factors and findings, are leading many to doubt if the cost of college is really worth it today.
Only one in four U.S. adults say it’s extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree in order to get a well-paying job in today’s economy, 35 percent say a college degree is somewhat important, and 40 percent say it’s not too or not at all important, according to the research.
About half (49 percent) say that today, it’s not as important to have a four-year college degree to secure a well-paying job as it was 20 years ago; 32 percent say it’s more
important, and 17 percent say it’s about as important as it was 20 years ago.
Just 22 percent say the cost of earning a four-year college degree today is worth it even if someone has to take out loans. Forty-seven percent say the cost is worth it only if someone doesn’t have to take out loans, and 29 percent say the cost is not worth it.
For more details, including an in-depth breakdown of labor market experiences for young men and young women, see the full report.
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