Only a third of US college students believes higher education is worth the cost — with humanities majors feeling the most ripped off, a dismal study shows.  Just 33% of students said college is worth the price, while 29% said it isn’t, according to the survey of 1,000 undergrad and graduate students enrolled in 2024 and conducted by the education research firm Best Colleges.   Another 38% of respondents said they are still on the fence about the value of college, the poll found.  Costs have gotten too high.

     Tuition for a four-year in-state public university averages $11,950 a year. For a private school, the average is nearly $45,000.   The survey also revealed growing skepticism over whether college should ideally be for everyone.  Just over one in three students, or 34%, said it is, regardless of what they want to do or accomplish in life.  But nearly half, or 45%, disagreed with the statement, and 21% were on the fence.  Those figures represent a 22 percentage point difference from 2022, when 56% of respondents said college was for everyone regardless of their aims, the survey said.

     A similar drop was seen in the percentage of students who said college is for everyone regardless of economic background. In 2022, almost two-thirds of those surveyed, 65%, said college was for everyone regardless of economic means.  By 2024, that figure had dropped to 48%, while 32% of students disagreed that college was for everyone regardless of background, and 20% were neutral.