From the News You Can Use Archives 06/05/07

A College Education is Necessary but What About the Cost?
By Ian Crawford, Web Communications Editor

More and more Americans believe that a college education is necessary to achieve success in the workforce. However, more and more Americans worry about the rising costs.

These are the conclusions of a new survey reported in Squeeze Play: How Parents and the Public Look at Higher Education Today by the Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Just over 1,000 adults were surveyed in mid-February of this year.

A selection of the findings includes the following:

• Higher education is a fundamental necessity
  Exactly one-half of those surveyed thought that a college education is necessary for achieving success, up from 31 percent in 2000.
• Rising costs cloud the picture
  Most of the respondents thought that the cost of education is rising dramatically. In fact, 59 percent think that higher education costs are going up as fast as or faster than health care costs. Of particular importance to the financial aid industry is a concern about loans, with nearly eight out of 10 people agreeing that students have to borrow too much money to pay for their college education.
• More and more Americans fear that the opportunity to attend college is being threatened
  Sixty percent believe it is the middle class who bear the brunt of rising college bills since wealthy people can afford it and poor people can get financial aid.
• But the public’s sense of urgency about higher education reform is diminished by “pressure valves” in the system
  Eighty-six percent of the respondents think that, despite rising costs, it is still possible for anyone who really wants to go to college to do so, if they are willing to make sacrifices like going part-time, living with parents and working.
• Parents are worried about paying for college, but most think they will find a way
  More than three-quarters (76 percent) of parents report that they are worried about being able to pay for college. However, 84 percent think they will find a way to make it happen.
• All minority parents—even those with high incomes—are disproportionately concerned about lack of opportunity for qualified students
  The report quotes earlier work by Public Agenda that minority young people are more likely than young whites to doubt whether a qualified student could find financial aid. They also stated that were not able to attend their first-choice college because of cost.

In interviews with The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, Jean Johnson, one of the report’s authors and executive vice president of Public Agenda, said, “We find overall that people know higher education is important, they have respect for the quality of higher education, but they have a lot of concern for the money. The public is just beginning to get this sense that all is not perfect.”

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Squeeze Play: How Parents and the Public Look at Higher Education Today  [PDF] - Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

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Story posted June 05, 2007.

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