In recent years, there’s been a steady stream of op-eds and opinion polls debating the value of higher education. While their conclusions vary, one thing is constant: too few reflect the perspectives of those who have the most to gain, and lose, from going to college – first-generation and low-income young people.
To address this gap, College Access: Research & Action (CARA) asked a group of first-generation and low-income young people in New York City to co-lead a research project on this topic by examining existing studies and conducting interviews with 65 of their peers. As documented in our new report, we observed two findings that challenge common narratives.
First, contrary to the past several years’ news coverage, we found that the vast majority of young people – about 75% – still want to go to college. This durable desire for college has recently been showing up in other studies, as more data shows that Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completions are going up, enrollments are increasing, and student experiences are significantly more positive than are accounted for by the general public’s concerns.
Second, we heard that “return on investment (ROI),” the framework of college value used by (too) many policymakers, doesn’t align well with how first-gen young people actually make decisions. This insight is unique to this research, so this blog will unpack three dimensions of this finding and why it matters.
Before New Tools, Students Need Guides They Can Trust
Over the past 10 years there has been a proliferation of frameworks and tools that measure the ROI of different colleges and degrees. One goal of these efforts is to put pressure on programs with low returns, as evidenced by the accountability provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). But policymakers also see ROI tools as a way of putting “information in the hands of consumers…[to] help students and their families make more informed decisions.”
Our research, however, found that few of the young people we spoke with were even aware of ROI tools, and even fewer had used them. Our participants described being overwhelmed by all the different messages they were hearing about college–coming from families, the media, and, increasingly, social media. Against the backdrop of this information overload, few students had heard of ROI tools, and when they had, they were skeptical of how applicable the calculations were for students like them. Instead, participants said the most useful information came from trusted messengers who had attended college themselves. As first-generation students, this usually meant their school counselors. However, only those with low student-to-counselor ratios were able to get the time with their counselors that they needed.
If policymakers want first-gen young people to use ROI tools, they’ll need to invest in ensuring students have access to counselors who have the time and training to help them apply the tools to their unique situations.
For Students, Short-Term Constraints Outweigh Long-Term Returns
Return on investment is about how education pays off, particularly in the future. ROI calculations generally don’t start until five or 10 years after graduation. But young people from low-income backgrounds – who have few financial resources and many family responsibilities – are focused on the opportunities and costs immediately in front of them.
In our research, student after student considered going to a residential public or private college. However, when they got their offers and saw the loans and other indirect costs involved, they decided instead to go to a local City University of New York (CUNY) college that they could attend tuition-free. While the other colleges may have strong ROI on paper, our participants’ immediate financial needs meant they didn’t feel they had the privilege to consider them. As one student told us, “When you’re first-generation, and you come from a low-income background, you don’t have the same freedom as the average person.”
For low-income young people to truly factor ROI into their decisions, there need to be multiple affordable options to choose from: colleges that not only don’t require taking out loans, but that also cover indirect expenses and help students earn money while in school. For our participants, CUNY served as this option; with multiple highly-ranked four-year schools, locations across the city, and support programs like ASAP and ACE that provide funding for transportation and books, students had several good choices that were affordable. Too many people across the country have none.
Money Is a Motivator, but It’s Not the Only One
While our research found that economics were central to our participants’ postsecondary decisions, their desire to go to college encompassed dreams beyond money. Participants wanted to go to college because of the type of work they sought to do; they had meaningful careers they wanted to pursue, regardless of “return.” The ‘college experience’ – meeting new people and learning new things – was also a key motivator. Finally, going to college held a strong symbolic value for students themselves and their families. As one participant explained, he was going to college for the “pride that I did it for myself, and I’ll also be proud because I know my parents didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.”
While young people are universally concerned about the cost of college, if we let our discourse become focused only on money, we risk failing to speak to the deeper motivations that fuel young people’s dreams about their future.
Making the Investments Students Really Need
Stories about declining confidence in the value of college continue to circulate in the media. It is true that not all young people want to go to college, and we need to do more to support them. However, the story of declining demand is inaccurate; young people continue to look to college as a path to opportunity and personal growth.
While many policymakers have turned to ROI tools to help young people make better decisions and get more out of their degrees, our findings from speaking with first-generation and low-income young people show the limits of that logic. The participants we spoke with had concerns that were more fundamental: they needed more time with counselors who knew them well, they needed college options that wouldn’t put them and their families in greater financial strain, and they wanted a college experience that would be both economically and personally fulfilling. Without these crucial investments in guidance and affordability, ROI will remain a compelling metric on paper but will be disconnected from the realities shaping students’ choices.