Perceived importance of college hits 48-year low in Gallup poll

By Sean Salai - The Washington Times - Thursday, October 1, 2026

A record-low 31% of adults participating in the Gallup poll described a college education as “very important,” the company reported Thursday.

That’s down from 35% of adults surveyed last year, the previous low in the seven surveys Gallup has conducted on the question since 1978.

At the same time, 29% of adults described college as “not too important” this year, up from the previous high of 24% last year.

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An additional 39% described college as “fairly important” this year, and the remaining 1% of respondents were not sure.

Gallup senior editor Megan Brenan noted that the perceived importance of college has declined in all demographic groups since 2013, when a record-high 70% saw it as very important and a record-low 6% saw it as not too important.

“These findings may be partially explained by Americans’ increasing concerns about the cost of college,” Ms. Brenan said in a summary of the findings.

Multiple public opinion surveys have shown Americans questioning the value of a college degree as artificial intelligence threatens white-collar jobs and students in many majors struggle to find work that pays off their federal student loan debts.

Gallup pointed in an email to national statistics showing that 32% of adults in 2013 held a bachelor’s degree or higher. College cost roughly $24,700 a year and left alumni with an average student loan debt of $26,500.

By 2024, 39% held a bachelor’s degree or higher, but college costs averaged $31,900 a year and left students with $29,600 of debt.

Gallup’s first poll in 1978 found that 36% of adults described college as very important, 16% as not too important and 46% as fairly important. That year, it cost only $2,900 to attend college, and 16% of adults had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Despite the decline, Ms. Brenan noted that “women, Democrats, people of color and college graduates remain relatively more likely than their counterparts to consider college very important.”

Gallup conducted a randomized national telephone survey of 1,200 adults from Aug. 3-24. The margin of error was 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.