“Americans have grown sour on one of the longtime key ingredients of the American dream,” said a recent NBC News article. “Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, according to a new NBC News poll, a dramatic decline over the last decade. Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is ‘worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,’ while 63% agree more with the concept that it’s ‘not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.’”
The poll is based on interviews with roughly 1,000 registered voters, — 70% via cell phones and 30% via text. 48% of the interview subjects were male, 52% female. 25% were high school graduates, 34% had some college or vocational training beyond high school, 21% had college degrees, and 17% had graduate or professional degrees. About 30% were between 18 and 39 years old, 35% between 40 and 59, 25% between 60 and 74, and 10% over 75 years old.
In 2013, 53% of adults surveyed said that a college degree was worth the costs compared to the 33% that said so in 2025. “The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI.”
As has been true for years, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has continuously showed that those with advanced degrees earn more and have lower unemployment rates than those with lower levels of education.
The 2024 earnings and unemployment data from the BLS showed that the median weekly earnings for those with bachelor degrees is $1,543, and their unemployment rate is 2.5%, rising to $1,840 and 2.2% respectively for those with master degrees, and to around $2,300 and 1.2% for those with professional and doctoral degrees. This compares to weekly earnings of around $975 and unemployment rate of 4.0% for those high school graduates with no higher degrees, and $1,050 and 2.8% for those with associate degrees or equivalent.
The concerns whether a college degree is worth it are not new. In a May 2014 article, “Is College Worth It? Clearly New Data Say,” NY Times columnist David Leonhardt wrote about the increasing wave of questions being raised about the value of a college education due to the rising costs of college that had led to a student debt crisis.
“A new set of income statistics answers those questions quite clearly: Yes, college is worth it, and it’s not even close,” wrote Leonhardt. “For all the struggles that many young college graduates face, a four-year degree has probably never been more valuable. The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else reached a record high last year, according to the new data, which is based on an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.”
“The decision not to attend college for fear that it’s a bad deal is among the most economically irrational decisions anybody could make in 2014,” added Leonhard, citing a then recent article by MIT economist David Autor which pointed out that a college-educated worker can expect an additional lifetime earning of over $500,000. “Over the long run, college is cheaper than free,” noted Leonhardt. “Not going to college will cost you about half a million dollars.”
But, over the past decade, an increasing number of articles have questioned whether college is still a good investment.
“Was your degree really worth it?,” is one such article, published in The Economist in April of 2023. “That question once seemed a no-brainer,” said the article. “For decades young adults in rich countries have flocked to higher education. Governments have touted college as a boon for social mobility and economic growth. Yet as fees rise and graduate earnings stagnate, disillusionment is growing.”
“For an average undergraduate, at least, this is not consistent with the facts,” added The Economist. “In most places, for most learners, the financial returns to higher education remain extremely healthy. Yet undertaking a degree has become riskier. The rewards for the best performers are increasing, but a troublingly high share of students see negative returns from their studies.”
The Economist cited a March 2023 WSJ article, “Americans Are Losing Faith in College Education,” that found that a majority of Americans, 56%, thought that a four-year degree was no longer worth the time and money, a number that increased to 63% in the recent 2025 NBC News poll.
“Skepticism is strongest among people ages 18-34, and people with college degrees are among those whose opinions have soured the most, portending a profound shift for higher education in the years ahead,” said the WSJ article. “Enrollment in U.S. colleges declined by about 15% over the last decade while the growth in alternative credentials, including apprenticeships, increased sharply. In 2017, doubt over the value of a college degree was greatest among men, Republicans, and people living in rural areas. That disaffection preceded a widening gender gap in higher education as hundreds of thousands of men left college during the pandemic.”
The climbing costs of a college education has clearly been a major factor in these changing attitudes. In a June 19 article, “The Costs of College Continue to Climb,” NY Federal Reserve economists Jason Abel and Richard Deitz noted that the net price of college, — the average price of tuition minus financial aid, — has increased from around $2,300 in the 1970s to about $8,000 in the late 2010s. “Thus, if a student completed a bachelor’s degree in four years, he or she could expect to pay an average of roughly $32,000 out of pocket.”
They further explained that out of pocket expenses are only a small part of the cost of college once opportunity costs are considered. “Attending college on a full-time basis typically requires delaying entry into the labor market and forgoing wages that would be available to those with a high school education. … Someone pursuing a bachelor’s degree could expect to forgo more than $120,000 in wages — almost four times net tuition costs.”
“Is College Still Worth It?,” asked Able and Deitz in a second article originally published in 2019, and updated in 2025. “After rising significantly in the 1980s and early 1990s, the return to college has held between 12 and 13 percent for the past three decades and was 12.5 percent in 2024 — easily exceeding the threshold for a sound investment. Indeed, by comparison, the stock market has provided a long-term return of about 8 percent and bonds have returned around 4 percent.”
“So, why has the return to college remained so high? It’s because while the cost of college has continued to rise, so have the benefits.”
“College graduates earn a substantial wage premium in the labor market compared to those with only a high school diploma, and this premium tends to grow over one’s career,” they further explained. “In recent years, the median college graduate with just a bachelor’s degree earned about $80,000, compared to $47,000 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. This means a typical college graduate earned a premium of over $32,000 per year, or about 68 percent — near its all-time high.”
“With the annual college wage premium at more than $30,000, it is easy to see why the return to college remains so substantial. Over an entire working life of more than forty years, such a premium adds up to a benefit well in excess of the costs.” Thus, the typical college graduate earns a return that easily surpasses the benchmark for a sound investment.
But, in a follow up article, “When College Might Not Be Worth It,” Able and Deitz discussed a number of circumstances under which a college education may not pay off and concluded that “as many as a quarter of college graduates appear to end up in relatively low-paying jobs, and for them, a college degree may not be worth it, at least in terms of the economic payoff. What are some of the things that affect where graduates end up in the earnings distribution? While some of it may come down to choices people make for the jobs they wish to have, one significant consideration is college major, something over which students have direct control. Indeed, majors such as engineering, math and computers, business and economics, and health sciences tend to earn returns well above average.”
Finally, will a college education still be worth in the future? Over the past several decades, jobs that required expert problem solving and complex communications have significantly expanded, with the earnings of the college educated workers needed to fill such jobs rising steadily. Given that our economy seems poised for significant transformations alongside advances in AI and other major technologies, it is more than likely that a college education will continue to be worth it.