The election showed voters are increasingly split by education level and angry about the economy even as college costs ease.
This “diploma divide” is now a defining feature of American politics. It comes at a time when earning a degree remains among the surest paths toward a higher income and when the costs of embarking on it are falling. But many don’t seem to notice.
The net costs students pay for four-year degrees have been declining for years, College Board data shows. When adjusted for inflation, in-state students now pay an average of $2,480 in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges this academic year, down 43% from a peak of $4,340 in 2012-13. At pricier four-year private institutions, the net tuition and fees students pay has declined a more modest 15%, to $16,510 from a 2006-07 peak of $19,330.
State and local government funding per student has been growing or holding steady since 2012, the data shows, helping drive costs lower. And institutional grant aid rose by an inflation-adjusted $19.6 billion between the 2013-14 school year and 2023-24. Yet only a quarter of adults see a college degree as critical to landing a well-paying job, a Pew survey this year found, and nearly half say that’s less important today than it was two decades ago.
