In this season of college admissions and state budget making across the country, we need a clearer discussion about the costs of preparing individuals and society for what’s sure to be a challenging future.
For starters, student debt today exceeds $1.7 trillion. We know this because the figure is often repeated. This figure has more than doubled over the past two decades and now surpasses the total that Americans owe on auto loans and credit cards. Return on investment has become a part of the college-going discussion like never before.
What’s seldom raised is the return to society. I will argue that the actual costs to all of us when individuals who would benefit from college opt not to do so are quite high—for themselves, their communities, and the nation. It’s critical to this discussion to address student debt, and that is best done by accounting for all that’s at stake—freedom, democracy, humanity’s very survival—and by homing in on the public’s responsibility.
Let’s first unpack how and why student loan debt exploded.
The Rising Price of Tuition
After World War II, higher education in the United States evolved from a system mainly catering to the elite to one that aimed to be more egalitarian. Legislation such as the 1944 G.I. Bill, the National Defense Education Act of 1958, and the Higher Education Act of 1965 encouraged millions of Americans to attend college. Pell Grants and other state and federal financial aid offered access to many people who previously had been priced out. While enrollment grew and tuition was low, federal and state lawmakers had not thrown the doors open to Black and brown citizens, who were systemically excluded.
The surge in college graduates helped fuel the knowledge economy, the birth of Silicon Valley, and the information technology and high-tech industries. We enjoyed an economic boom never before seen in US history, especially as college participation broadened.
Tuition increases are part of the story of exploding student loan debt. Over the past three decades, average yearly tuition at public four-year colleges and universities jumped from about $4,900 to nearly $11,000 after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reported. At private institutions, average tuition doubled—from $19,000 to $38,000—after adjusting for inflation.
Decades ago, state and local governments provided public colleges with three-quarters of their operating revenue, with tuition accounting for fully one-quarter. After steady cuts in funding for higher education, state and local governments today provide half of public college revenue. The remainder comes from tuition.
The Great Recession accelerated this trend. States responded to the financial crisis with deep cuts in funding for higher education, which prompted colleges to raise tuition further, reduce full-time faculty, drop courses and majors, and, in some cases, close campuses. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported, overall state funding for public community colleges and bachelor degree-granting institutions in the year ending 2018 was $6.6 billion less than it had been immediately before the Great Recession. Forty-one states spent less per student in 2018 than in 2008 after adjusting for inflation.
Add to this mix that middle-class incomes, adjusted for inflation, have remained virtually flat for forty years. Cuts in state funding, tuition increases, and stagnant wages have caused student loan debt to skyrocket, making it harder for students to enroll and graduate. Those factors have also worsened racial and class inequality.
College Is Worth It, Says Study
In previous periods of economic turbulence and rising unemployment, college enrollment increased. Yet, even though 10 million jobs disappeared during the pandemic, college undergraduate enrollment dropped 7 percent (requires login) between 2019 and last year.
For many states, the decline has been more prolonged and more severe. In Indiana, for example, the college-going rate has dropped 12 percentage points since 2015, coinciding with a period when the state substantially reduced higher ed support. With less funding and fewer scholarships available, students of color and those from lower-income households across the state account for the bulk of the enrollment declines.
The dominant narrative about declining enrollment is that students no longer value or need college. But a 2022 Gallup-Lumina Foundation study showed the opposite: There is high demand for and interest in college, but many people can neither access nor afford it.
We found that 85 percent of students who left college amid the pandemic want to return to school. Fifty-six percent of those enrolled before the pandemic are considering returning to school. And 40 percent of those who never went to college say they want to register.
Students told Gallup that the reasons they aren’t enrolling or staying in school don’t have to do with value, but are because they’re worried about finances, buried in debt, feel tremendous stress, feel unprepared academically, and struggle with heavy family and work obligations. In other words, most students believe college is worth it, but money and stress are holding them back.
Lifetime Impacts of Higher Ed
These findings should alarm educators, policymakers, and citizens alike. A bachelor’s degree is still Americans’ surest route to the middle class. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce compared the lifetime earnings of workers with no more than a high school diploma to those with degrees or some college experience. The center found lifetime earnings boosts of:
- $300,000 for those who attended college but did not earn degrees.
- $400,000 for those with associate degrees.
- $1.2 million for those with bachelor’s degrees.
- $1.6 million for those with master’s degrees.
People without education past high school earn less than those with some higher education and are also more likely to be unemployed and live in poverty.
As writer Jon Marcus explained in The Hechinger Report a year ago, people with only a high-school education suffer more. They are more prone to depression, live shorter lives, need more government assistance, pay less taxes, divorce more frequently, and vote and volunteer less often. Some 300,000 Americans a year are now dying prematurely from drugs, alcohol, and suicide—the so-called “deaths of despair” that are taking an excessive toll on those with no education after high school. These losses spread devastation among countless families, communities, and the nation.
Economics Professor Michael J. Hicks of Ball State University underscores a fundamental economic reality when he says, “differences in economic growth across regions—nations, states, cities, and counties—are almost exclusively caused by differences in educational attainment. Poorly educated places are poor and grow slowly, while well-educated places are prosperous and grow quickly.”
The economy’s shift from high-paying manufacturing jobs to office work requiring college education has made life more challenging, broadening the popular appeal of authoritarianism. While a global phenomenon, we’re seeing the growing appeal (log in required) of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom here in the United States.
Studies going back decades have shown that higher levels of education make it less likely people will turn away from democracy as a means of self-governance. Data from surveys that track authoritarian leanings show that higher levels of education reduce such beliefs and values. Today, about one-quarter of Americans with a high school diploma or less say “military rule would be a good way to govern our country,” compared with only 7 percent of college grads holding the same view.
Higher ed promotes independent thought and curiosity. It exposes people to other cultures and ideas. It can equip people to handle complexity, differences, and rapid societal changes. A better-educated population, then, is not only essential to individual prosperity—what we have long called the “good jobs and good life” dividends of education—but also shared prosperity, the strongest bulwark against growing threats to our democratic way of life.
Fortunately, students hungry for a college education have more options than ever.
Many Paths
At a community college, people can earn associate degrees or certificates for much less than the cost of attending four-year colleges and universities. According to the College Board, the average annual cost of tuition at an in-district community college is $3,770. Careers requiring at least associate degrees include registered nurses, dental hygienists, computer programmers, and radiation therapists, all of which pay between $70,000 and $80,000 on average.
Trade schools, vocational schools, or technical colleges provide hands-on training for skilled labor, with students graduating in six months to two years. And they cost much less than attending universities. Skilled carpenters, plumbers, and electricians—jobs that require education beyond high school—have median incomes between $50,000 and $60,000, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the advantages of these jobs is that they are always needed and cannot be automated.
Coding boot camps are another alternative for a growing number of information technology careers, such as software, web development, and cybersecurity. These short-term, high-impact courses cover in-demand digital skills, and the average pay for software engineers is about $71,600.
There also are growing resources to help students and families navigate the higher ed marketplace. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce used census data to analyze wages for 137 college majors, detailing, for example, which majors account for the highest and lowest median and lifetime earnings. Careful research and planning for major life opportunities is the kind of critical thinking challenge that higher ed encourages.
As enrollment has fallen, many colleges are cutting sticker prices. From September 2019 to July 2021, during which inflation exceeded 7 percent, tuition and fees rose by less than 1 percent. The fall 2022 tuition increases at public colleges and universities reached a historically low level, according to the College Board, and declined when adjusted for inflation.
Some colleges are lowering prices by as much as one-third. Others guarantee students will pay the same tuition for their entire time in college without annual increases. More colleges are expanding financial aid, so students from families with incomes below certain income thresholds can avoid loans altogether.
These changes are overdue and come at a pivotal moment for the country.
Renewing the Commitment to Higher Ed
Georgetown’s center estimates that, by 2031, 72 percent of all American jobs will go to workers with at least some education beyond high school. Nearly six of every seven good jobs that pay at least $38,000 for workers 25–44 years old, at least $49,000 for workers 45–64 years old, and at least $72,000 at the median nationwide, with adjustments for cost-of-living differences by state also will go to college-educated workers.
Labor market demand for skills nourished by higher education continues to rise. These same skills are needed to address global warming and the climate crisis, keep our aging population healthy, find new energy sources, and revitalize the economy. To maintain our way of life, the country must invest more resources to support both the rising demand for people with bachelor’s degrees and the increasing need for others with shorter-term credentials that open the door to family-sustaining jobs and additional learning.
Policymakers must begin to grasp that starving higher education of public funding jeopardizes the future growth of their states and the country. Higher ed leaders must do their part to keep prices in check. Neither party can keep sticking parents and students with the bill. They must rethink how educational experiences and learning are delivered, contain costs, and provide scholarships and other support to ensure individuals can get the education they need. Colleges and universities also must do better at reaching today’s students, who are older, usually employed, and often have families of their own.
American society must renew its belief and commitment to the power of higher education to transform communities and lives. Learning that takes place after high school offers the most reliable path to the middle class and is the foundation upon which a fragile democracy rests.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the author and not the American Sociological Association.
