Degrees of value in higher education

Concerns about high tuitions and student debt, a new study suggests, obscure consensus on nonmaterial benefits of college to individuals and societies.

The Monitor's View

Faith in the economic value of a college degree has fallen steadily in the United States over the past decade.

Gallup reported in July that the number of Americans who have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education dropped 20 percentage points since 2015, to just 36%. A poll by The Wall Street Journal and University of Chicago offers one explanation for this. In April, it found that 56% of Americans agreed that a four-year college education was “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.” That figure rose by 16% since 2013.

Return-on-investment conclusions, however, obscure attitudes moving in the opposite direction. A study published this week by New America, an education think tank in Washington, found that more than 70% of Americans think that higher education leads to “greater civic engagement, lower unemployment, and better public health within their communities.”

The acknowledgment of those outcomes reveals a broad consensus among Americans on the value of nonmaterial benefits of higher education, such as mental enrichment and equality. “While there are still some gaps in responses between Democrats and Republicans, the individual and societal benefits of higher education show bipartisan alignment,” the study reported.

Indeed, the unity it measured on issues often presented as polarizing is striking. More than 80% of Americans, for example, agree that the federal government and states should increase spending to make community colleges, public universities, and minority-serving institutions more affordable.

With respect to race and ethnicity, 78% agree that all students benefit when faculties and classes reflect America’s diversity. Among Asian Americans, roughly 80% say ethnicity should be a factor in admissions to ease racial inequities in broader society – a finding that contradicts how the attitudes of that community were reflected in the recent Supreme Court cases on affirmative action.

According to the Humanities Indicators project at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, enrollment in four-year and graduate degree programs in fields like history and literature has been dropping globally for years. That decline reflects job market trends more than a shift in intellectual curiosity. A study in Daedalus last year found that, in the United States, “the number of students earning associate’s degrees in the humanities and liberal arts in community colleges has grown to unprecedented levels.”

The demands for affordability and equality in higher education reported in the New America study seek to broaden the lanes of economic opportunity. But they also affirm the civic good that individuals and societies find in cultivating diversities of thought.