More high school students say college ‘not worth it,’ survey finds

More and more high school students say they will skip college because they doubt it’s worth the money, a new study has found.

In a nationwide survey of 20,324 high school students released Monday, the Washington, D.C.-based education consulting firm EAB found that 20% of those opting out of higher education said “college isn’t worth the cost,” making it their top reason for not going.

That’s up from 17% in 2021 and 8% in 2019, the firm’s last biennial survey before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered college campuses in March 2020.

After affordability, high schoolers named doubts about succeeding in college and mental health issues as their second and third biggest reasons for opting out of college.

“Students and families should keep cost and [return on investment] top of mind as they consider whether or where to attend college,” Hope Krutz, an EAB official, told The Washington Times. “They should also bear in mind that college graduates earn, on average, more than $1 million more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma.”

The EAB study said pandemic trends of declining college enrollments, K-12 learning losses and spikes in anxiety and depression among youths contributed to the findings.

In a separate poll of high school guidance counselors, the study found 70% said their students skipped college due to rising costs and student debt loads, making it their top reason.

The second biggest reason cited by guidance counselors was the rise of alternative and more attractive earning opportunities (34%). Next came concerns about academic readiness (33%) and the cost-of-living expenses (31%) while attending college, respectively.

“More students are deciding it doesn’t pay to go to college because, for most of them, it’s a fact,” former Education Secretary William Bennett, who served under President Reagan, told The Times. “Half of kids who start college don’t finish and end up loaded down with student loan debt. For the rest, finding a good job depends on going to a top 15 school like Stanford or majoring in a STEM field.”

The EAB study follows multiple reports of college enrollments declining and tuition rising during the pandemic, adding to the debt loads of students taking out federal loans to pay for their degrees.

The National Student Clearinghouse estimates that overall undergraduate enrollment is down by more than 1 million students from pre-pandemic levels, worsening a decade-long slide that preceded the first COVID-19 lockdowns.

According to the College Board, which does not adjust its numbers for inflation, average tuition for in-state students at a four-year public university rose 1.8% from $10,740 in fall 2021 to $10,950 in fall 2022. For out-of-state students, public college tuition rose 2.2% from $27,560 to $28,240 over the same period.

When asked what they want in a college experience, 45% of the high school students EAB surveyed said “affordable tuition,” making it their top priority in choosing a school.

Asked “what best represents value” in a college, 42% of high school students said “successful job placement upon graduation,” making it their top indicator of value. Another 36% said “availability of scholarships,” their No. 2 sign of value.

“For too long, college administrators have ignored the price of higher education, knowing that students could obtain subsidized loans to pay for it,” said Ronald J. Rychlak, a professor and former associate dean at the University of Mississippi School of Law, in an email. “We’ve finally hit the point where students are looking at prices and making market-driven decisions.”

According to an Education Data Initiative analysis of federal numbers published this month, 64% of four-year students in public colleges and universities take out a student loan to enroll. The average debt for a four-year bachelor’s degree is now $34,700, it found.

The EAB survey covered a racially, financially and geographically diverse sampling of high school students, reflecting the demographics of those who traditionally attend college after high school.

Only 24% of those surveyed were first-generation college prospects, compared to 76% from families with previous generations of college graduates. Among those surveyed, about 58% were high school seniors, 26% were juniors and the rest were sophomores.

Just 10% of survey respondents came from families earning more than $200,000 a year, with another 33% making $90,001 to $200,000 and 53% earning $90,000 a year or less.

Concerns about financial, academic and mental resources were highest among first-generation college prospects and minority students from lower incomes, the study found.

“Young people are telling us that they are not sure that going into five-figure debt is worth the payout,” Tyrone Howard, a UCLA education professor specializing in racial equity, told The Times. “They are instead becoming more entrepreneurial, exploring other options, and saying college can wait. I am not clear that I can say that they are right or wrong to do this.”

Advocates of a college education point to decades of research correlating a college education with high life satisfaction, greater access to homeownership, robust political participation, access to better health care and living in safer communities.

In a survey that Gallup and the nonprofit Lumina Foundation released on May 3, 65% of college students said they were continuing their education to get knowledge or skills and 62% said they were doing it to obtain a higher-paying job. Another 60% said staying in college would help them pursue a more fulfilling career.

Among adults who did not enroll in college, 55% named the cost of a degree as a “very important” reason and 45% blamed inflation for making it less affordable, Gallup reported.

“I think until the costs of higher education comes down or greater financial support (nonloans) are put in place, this trend may continue to be a reality for many young people,” said Mr. Howard.