Shockly few students think college worth the price of admission and humanities majors have it worst

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 BestColleges.Another 38% of respondents said they are still on the fence about the value of college, the poll found.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.Gen Zers appear to be more sceptical of college generally compared to their millennial counterparts, the survey shows.Only 45% of Gen Z students versus 61% of millennials said college is for everyone regardless of background.Around 31%, compared to half of millennials, 53%, said college is for everyone regardless of what they want to do in life.The study also found that humanities majors held bleaker opinions of the value of a college education but at the same time, were more likely than STEM or business majors to say that college is for everyone.Just ...