Executive Summary

Varying Degrees is New America’s nationally representative annual survey of how Americans feel about educational opportunities after high school.¹ Now in its sixth year, we have trend data that show that Americans believe in the value that education after high school provides, that federal and state governments play an important role in its funding, and that colleges and universities should be held accountable for any taxpayer dollars they receive.

The past six years have included serious national upheaval—multiple challenging election cycles; a global pandemic; a recession and overly hot economic recovery; a racial reckoning; rampant inflation; and global conflict—and yet views on higher education have shifted little over the years. Varying Degrees 2022 tracks year over year data, focusing on the general population overall. We also highlight findings based on political party identification and other demographics.

While there has been relative consistency in Americans’ views about educational opportunities after high school, there are some signs over the past couple of years that positivity has declined somewhat. In early 2020, for example, 69 percent of Americans said that colleges and universities were having a positive effect on the way things were going. In 2021 that had fallen to 58 percent, and this year it has fallen again, to 55 percent.

Other key findings from this year include:

• Americans continue to believe in the value of pursuing educational opportunities after high school. A majority (64 percent) believes that adults living in the United States need some sort of postsecondary credential to ensure financial security, with 27 percent saying that Americans need at least a bachelor’s degree or beyond.
• Education after high school continues to offer a good return on investment. Over three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) continue to believe that education beyond high school offers a good return in investment for students. This number has remained relatively stable since we began collecting data in 2017.
• Various higher education sectors contribute to a strong American workforce. Most Americans (85 percent) believe community colleges contribute to a strong workforce. The number is 78 percent for public four-year colleges, 71 percent for private nonprofit colleges, 72 percent for minority serving institutions (MSIs),² and 58 percent for for-profit colleges.
• Online education quality is seen as similar to in-person education, but it should cost less. Nearly half of Americans (47 percent) agree that the quality of online education is about the same as in-person instruction, an increase from last year, when only about a third of Americans agreed. Most (4 in 5) Americans believe online education should cost less.
• Americans are split on whether someone can get a high-quality education after high school that is also affordable. About half of Americans (52 percent) believe that students have access to an affordable, high-quality education after high school.
• Government must spend more money on higher education to make it affordable. Similar to last year, 58 percent of Americans said the government should be more responsible for funding higher education. And a majority still say that states (80 percent) and the federal government (78 percent) should spend more tax dollars on educational opportunities after high school to make them more affordable.
• Public colleges and universities are worth the investment. The only institutional types that a majority of Americans are comfortable supporting with taxpayer dollars are public colleges and universities and MSIs. Overall, 79 percent of Americans agree with spending their taxpayer dollars on public community colleges, 68 percent on public four-year universities, and 63 percent on MSIs.
• Americans continue to strongly support holding colleges and universities accountable. A majority of Americans support the idea that colleges and universities should lose some access to government funding if they perform poorly, such as having low graduation rates (78 percent support), low rates of graduates earning a living wage (73 percent support), or high student loan debt relative to earnings (70 percent support).

New this year, we also asked questions about test-optional admissions and about the financial health of American households. In addition, we oversampled current student loan borrowers to understand how student loans have impacted their lives and how they feel about educational opportunities after high school.³ These results form a special and separate in-depth feature of this year’s Varying Degrees.⁴