Blogs:

Recently a survey was conducted among 1000 university and college presidents. This survey showed that public high school students who arrived at colleges are not as prepared as they should be or as they were a decade ago. When asked whether US higher education is still best in the world, only 19% of them said yes.

Issued by Pew Research Center based in Washington, this report named “Is College worth It?” also found that three quarters of American adults find colleges too expensive and out of reach. 86% of college graduates find that they did indeed benefit from graduating and that investing in college education is indeed a valued investment.  57% of them however say that good value is not provided by higher education system for students.

Two back to back surveys were conducted online and over the phone.2, 142 people above the age of 18 were surveyed over the phone and another survey was conducted online. Over a 1000 presidents of colleges and universities participated in the survey including presidents of for-profit, public, four year and two year private schools.

Four year college graduates earn around $20,000 a year on an average more than what they would if they did not have a degree shows the phone survey. Adults without a degree say they would be earning $20,000 more if they had one.

This is in keeping with the 2010 census bureau’s report that annual earning median gap between a high school and college graduate at $19,550. Most of the young adults are unable to attend college due to high costs though at least 94% of parents think that their children should attend college.

Views on college education mission among the public are mixed. 39% of the public think that college helps students grow intellectually and personally while 47% of them think that teaching job related skills to students to help them get a job should be the main purpose of college.

Online survey of university and college presidents showed the following results –

Only 19% of presidents feel that our higher education system is the best in the world. 60% of them think that US higher education is indeed headed in the right direction. The disparity in answers to these questions was based on school selectivity.

14% of presidents were from low selectivity school, 22 percent from medium selectivity and 40 percent from highly selective universities and colleges. 52% of presidents feel that college students today do not study as much as students used to a decade ago. 58% of them feel that as compared to kids ten years ago, students coming to college from high school today are less prepared.

While 73% presidents feel that grading process was right, 27% of them felt that in their own schools, faculty was very lenient in grading. 64% of presidents feel that our country will be unable to achieve the 2020 goal set by President Obama to achieve the world’s largest percentage of college graduates.