Americans believe higher education is a public benefit and that the government should do more to make it affordable.

A majority of Americans (60 percent) believe government should fund higher education because it is good for society, compared with 27 percent who say students should fund it because it is a personal benefit.

Perhaps as indication of the fact that a majority of Americans think that higher education is good for society, over three-quarters of them (77 percent) are comfortable with their own tax dollars going to support it. Over three-quarters also agree that state (78 percent) and federal (77 percent) government should spend more tax revenue on higher education to make it more affordable.

There is a notable divergence in views between Democrats and Republicans on whether government should fund higher education because it is good for society or whether individuals should fund it because it is a personal benefit. A solid majority of Democrats (76 percent) sees it as a good for society, worthy of government investment, whereas about half of Republicans (52 percent) see it as a personal benefit that should be financed with individual investments.

Regardless of party identification, a majority is comfortable with their own taxes being spent on higher education. However, there is over a 20-point spread in the opinions of Democrats (85 percent) and Republicans (63 percent).

Democrats strongly agree that state (91 percent) and federal (92 percent) government should spend more tax dollars on higher education to make it more affordable. While Republicans are much less likely to agree that state (57 percent) and the federal government (54 percent) should spend taxpayer dollars on higher education, a majority of Republicans still agree.

By Race and Ethnicity

African Americans are much more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to see higher education as a good for society (77 percent) than as a personal benefit. Perhaps for this reason, they are also the most likely to believe that the federal government needs to spend more on higher education to make it affordable (91 percent), followed by Hispanic respondents (84 percent), and Asian American respondents (82 percent). While white respondents are decidedly less likely to agree that state (72 percent) or the federal government (71 percent) should spend more tax dollars to make higher education affordable, they are still highly supportive of these measures overall.

By Educational Attainment

Even though a high percentage of people with high school degrees or less agree about having their tax dollars going to support higher education, they are the least likely among all groups of educational attainment to feel comfortable with the idea: 69 percent of these respondents agree, compared with 76 percent of those with some college, 80 percent of those with undergraduate degrees, and 82 percent of those with graduate degrees.

By Generation

Generation Z is the most likely (80 percent) to believe that tax dollars should go to higher education because of its benefits for society, compared with 60 percent of Millennials, 57 percent of Generation X respondents, 58 percent of Baby Boomers and 57 percent of the Silent Generation.

Generation Z is also the most likely to feel comfortable having their taxes supporting higher education (87 percent), and to want to see more spending from state and federal (86 percent for both) government to make higher education more affordable.