Posted on 11/28/2025 7:13:12 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Americans have grown sour on one of the longtime key ingredients of the American dream.
Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, according to a new NBC News poll, a dramatic decline over the last decade.
Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,” while 63% agree more with the concept that it’s “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.”
In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn’t. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not.
The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group. But the shift in sentiment is especially striking among Republicans.
In 2013, 55% of Republicans called a college degree worth it, while 38% said it wasn’t worth it. In the new poll, just 22% of Republicans say the four-year degree is worth it, while 74% say it’s not.
Democrats have seen a significant shift too, but not to the same extent — a decline from 61% who said a degree was worth it in 2013 to 47% this year.
Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Thank you Mike Rowe!
Depends on the liberal arts degree. A degree with a major in history or political science (I majored in history with a minor split between political science and economics) I
is a very good stepping stone to a law degree, which I have. Lots of the other liberal arts stuff is basically a waste of time with a whole lot of indoctrination thrown in.
.
And you ‘promote’ yourself by starting your own company after you run yourself
ragged on the dual-coastal bi-weekly consulting engineer excursions.
A “dramatic shift” that conservatives have been saying for a long, long time.
There are too many opportunities available for real learning outside of the tradition form of higher education which cost almost nothing by comparison. This comes at a time when educational institutions have saddled themselves with pushing non-productive lefty ideals with now tenured staff that was hired through DEI policies and not merit.
AI is currently being used for wholly unsuited purposes such as customer support, but the real threat is to DEI hires in education. AI based instruction is not only efficient for many forms of educational, but there is also no way for professors who were never really qualified to teach concepts which are actually useful in the workplace to compete.
Tuition/fees at my university were $1800 per year when I started teaching in 1990. Today, it’s $15,300, a 750% increase. Enrollment has gone from 13,700 to 4,600 with only 4 of 16 dorms still open.
Another huge change — enrollment this year is 62% female and 38% male. More men are questioning the value of a four-year degree that leaves them with huge debt and no guarantee of a job related to their degree.
Depends on the “degree”.
Helped put my boy through college where he secured a 4 year degree in Civil Engineering. Had 3 offers within 2 weeks of graduation and after a year on the job he’s has several competeing firms offer him packages trying to steal him away.
My degree was in Mech Eng in 1983. I consider it worth it as it has enabled the Vader family a pretty comfortable life.
Oh, yes.
Many degrees are good stepping stones to MD or law.
And many other are good if you are dedicated to it.
There is limited need for most degrees. You can always teach the stuff to others!
But be prepared not to make killing with those degrees!
Colleges generate too many liberal arts or astronomy degrees to get those people jobs in these very limited demand areas.
Yes.
And you need to keep up on new advances in your field.
That is why on-line courses, libraries and YouTube were invented.
The going away, living on campus and doing nothing but college and activism is for rich kids. And does not seem to be doing them a lot of good.
The majority of us are not rich. If you want a college degree, live at home, work part time and study local.
Here is how Grok replied, on this subject if anyone cares...
“the convergence of AI accessibility, legal restrictions on race-based policies, and market demands for proven skills aligns on exposing inefficiencies in elite higher education hiring.
Shared Outlook
This synergy pressures institutions to prioritize measurable competence over demographic checkboxes, benefiting students with direct, effective learning tools.
Forward Trends
Rising AI tutoring adoption reduces reliance on variable faculty quality.
Enrollment shifts favor value-driven programs, sidelining high-cost underperformers.
Policy evolutions under current leadership reinforce merit-focused reforms.”
AI while often wholly unsuitable for the customer service role that many businesses try to use it for... poses a clear and present danger to our current institutions of upper learning. When it comes to learning marketable skills going forward AI is vastly superior at a fraction of the price of a bunch of DEI hire “professors”.
We have a few non-STEM PhDs in the family.
The guy who owned our favorite plumbing company made more than all of them with zero college debt.
He was an awesome plumber, all his guys were, and worked his fanny off.
And said PhDs still resented the fact that he made far more annually, net, than they did.
Charlie Kirk surely contributed to this. College is a scam!
Conservative parents were duped for too many years.
In 1960, approximately 11% of adults aged 25 and older in the United States had completed four or more years of college.
In 2023, approximately 47.1% of working-age adults in the U.S. held at least an associate or bachelor’s degree.
Add in grade inflation, leftist indoctrination, less educated students coming out of high school and it’a easy to see how a college degree is worth less than in the past.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for college tuition and fees are 1,542.78% higher in 2025 versus 1977 (a $308,556.52 difference in value).
Between 1977 and 2025: College tuition experienced an average inflation rate of 6% per year. This rate of change indicates significant inflation. In other words, college tuition costing $20,000 in the year 1977 would cost $328,556.52 in 2025 for an equivalent purchase. Compared to the overall inflation rate of 3.53% during this same period, inflation for college tuition was higher.
https://www.in2013dollars.com/College-tuition-and-fees/price-inflation
“AI is currently being used for wholly unsuited purposes such as customer support, but the real threat is to DEI hires in education. AI based instruction is not only efficient for many forms of educational, but there is also no way for professors who were never really qualified to teach concepts which are actually useful in the workplace to compete.”
LOL!! Laughing with you, not at you. Sometimes AI truly makes a fool of itself doing things like writing legal briefs that turn out to be mostly fiction in the fictitious cases that they cite. The problem seems to be that legal brief writing programs are designed to please the writer by giving him or her fake cases to cite to astounded judges. In many ways it’s much like the early GPS which could easily end up sending ignorant drivers who didn’t know how to use paper maps into farm fields instead of the destinations they wanted.
While the cost of college has skyrocketed, the utility of a degree has diminished in like proportion. Academia has lost respect for the value of real education and is instilling that lack of respect in their graduates. Now all they think about is enrollment numbers that translate into money. Unfortunately that seems to be the state of affairs for religious institutions as well. And to speak up about it is to invite the treatment that Socrates endured.
LOL. My GPS directed me to drive off a cliff in Spain. I declined.
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