Americans' opinions about the value of a college education are souring

More Americans than ever are questioning the value of higher education. A new survey from Gallup finds that just 31% of adults in the U.S. think a college education is “very important.” That’s the lowest since Gallup first asked that question nearly 50 years ago.

In the cauldron of ingredients that’s led to this loss of trust in higher education, the cost of college is key. So are the loans people take out to cover that cost.

“Everybody knows somebody who's drowning in debt,” said Josh Wyner, who leads the Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program. “That difficulty repaying debt is shaping how people feel about the whole system.”

Another ingredient, Wyner said, is that many recent college grads have struggled to find work, and their stories resonate with would-be students.

Plus, higher ed hasn’t worked out for a lot of people, noted Catharine Hill, a senior advisor at the education nonprofit Ithaka S&R. There are more than 43 million adults in the U.S. who started college and may have taken on some debt but never got a degree.

”Those people haven't experienced the benefits of going on to higher education, and in many cases, it's probably made them worse off,” she said.

Top that off with a heavy dollop of worrying about what AI’s going do to the labor market, and you end up with the current stew of uncertainty that’s tough for colleges, which are also seeing fewer international students and a dwindling number of young people.

“I think schools are going to be very challenged in terms of net tuition revenue,” Hill said.

However, one potential source of new students, Hill added, could be the old ones — those millions of people who started college but never finished.