College Degree Not Worth Cost?: New Gallup-Purdue Poll Finds Experiential Learning Valued - Jake New, Inside Higher Ed

Just half of college alumni “strongly agree” that their education was worth what they paid for it, according to the newest data from an ongoing Gallup-Purdue University study of college graduates. Among graduates who took out student loans of any amount, 33 percent said they strongly agreed that their education was worth what they spent. As their amount of student debt increased, the graduates were less likely to see the value of their education. Also making a difference, the survey found, is the amount of experiential learning opportunity a student has while in college. If recent graduates had experienced either “an internship related to their studies, active involvement in extracurricular activities or a project that took a semester or more to complete,” they were 1.5 times more likely to strongly agree that their education was worth their expenditures. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/29/half-college-graduates-say-college-not-worth-cost-survey-finds