Are Parents Pushing Gen Z Away from Higher Ed?

National college-going rates have now declined for eleven consecutive years. This wave of higher education ‘non-consumption’ started in 2012, reversing a decades-long trend of increased college-going throughout the country.

Many higher ed leaders we spoke to suggested that rising costs were behind the decline in college-going rates, but this explanation doesn’t capture the full story. While it’s true there is a growing belief that college is too expensive, college-going rates have declined most rapidly for prospects with greater ability to attend college, those with higher family incomes and with parents who attended college themselves. Reducing access barriers remains critical work, but this trend suggests that most of the recent growth in non-consumption is due to a lack of interest in college, not lack of access. Read on to see how Gen X’s legacy of student loan debt influences the college-going decisions of today’s high school graduates.

Growth in non-consumption coming from higher-access prospects

There are two main reasons suggesting declines in college-going rates are due to a lack of interest in college. First, despite media claims to the contrary, the actual net cost of college hasn’t increased substantially over the past decade. Data submitted to the Department of Education shows that after adjusting for financial aid, grants, and inflation, the net costs of four-year colleges only increased by around 5% between 2010 and 2019.

New non-consumers mostly from higher income brackets

Change in number of non-consumers by family income, American Community Survey (ACS) 2012-2021