Is College Worth It?
Americans have mixed views on the importance of having a degree. 47% say the cost is worth it only if someone doesn’t have to take out loans.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Americans have mixed views on the importance of having a degree. 47% say the cost is worth it only if someone doesn’t have to take out loans.
Most U.S. young adults are at least mostly financially independent and happy with their parents’ involvement in their lives. Parent-child relationships are mostly strong.
The charts below allow for comparisons between racial or ethnic groups over time on a range of measures including educational attainment, household income, life expectancy and others. You may select any two groups at a time for comparison.
In 2012, a record 69% of the nation’s new college graduates had taken out student loans to finance their education. Graduates from more affluent families are much more likely to borrow today than 20 years ago.
After running up record debt-to-income ratios during the bubble economy of the 2000s, young adults shed substantially more debt than older adults did during the Great Recession and its immediate aftermath—mainly by virtue of owning fewer houses and cars, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Federal Reserve Board and other government data. […]
About one out of five (19%) of the nation’s households owed student debt in 2010, more than double the share two decades earlier and a significant rise from the 15% that owed such debt in 2007. A record 40% of all households headed by someone younger than age 35 owed student debt in 2010.
One day you’re the brightest star in the galaxy. Then something new comes along — and suddenly you’re a relic. It’s a turn of fate that awaits sports heroes, movie stars, political leaders. And, yes, even household appliances.
Of the 13 recessions that the American public has endured since the Great Depression of 1929-33, none has presented a more punishing combination of length, breadth and depth than this one.
From the kitchen to the laundry room to the home entertainment center, Americans are paring down the list of familiar household appliances they say they can’t live without.
In the smackdown between Big Macs and caffe lattes, Americans manage to typecast themselves by just about every demographic and ideological characteristic under the sun.
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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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