Opinion | Who Do Americans Think Should Pay for College?

Brian Powell: One aspect at work here is that women may have a more positive view of higher education and see greater value in higher education. Women may view college funding through the role of the mother: “These are our children, so we should take care of them.” Men may also have that view for children, but they think of those going to college as “students” rather than “children.” That shifts responsibility from the general public to the college-goer themselves.

Tressie: The easy explanation for your finding that racial minorities think that the government should play a larger role in funding higher education is “they just want free stuff.” But what I see in the data is a different conception of the state.

Natasha: Right. Racial minorities are much more receptive toward a compact between individuals and government. So they believe that each group is supposed to be making some kind of contribution. And the government’s role should be a larger one because the cost is getting out of hand.

Brian: Parents who are racial minorities think the parents should have a larger role, too. The logic goes that it’s the job of parents and the government to support and protect the next generation. And it’s the student’s job to focus on school and doing well there.

Tressie: That jumped out at me. Earlier in the book you talk about the late 20th-century category of “emerging adult,” that comes out of a sort of life-cycle way of understanding college’s role. I think of your results about minority parents as them wanting to extend the protections to that category of emerging adult, this really fragile chrysalis, that their kids don’t often get.

I also thought your results about how age affects the way people think about who should pay for college were really interesting. It’s easy to take a cursory look at how: “It’s generational warfare. The olds hate the youngs because they won’t get a haircut and a job.” But when you dig in, there’s something more complicated going on.

Brian: Right, the older people say parents should be responsible. It’s not the older people saying, “Well, these lazy kids, they should be doing it.” Maybe they do think young college students are lazy, but they still think that parents have an obligation. I think one of the most interesting patterns is in the younger people, because they completely disagree with that. In fact, it’s the only group who are more likely to say it’s the student’s responsibility than the parent’s responsibility. Younger people think it’s the government and the student who should be responsible. In the interviews, you get an idea of why. They say, “We are adults, and so we are responsible.”

Natasha: It makes me sad in some ways, because they are basically children when they’re being asked to take on all the student loans, and they feel responsible, and they make these choices where they make these investments in higher education. We tell them that they’re old enough to make these choices and these decisions, and they’ve internalized that, obviously, based on their responses But should they internalize it? I think that’s a different question.

Tressie: I’m personally over the debate over “critical race theory,” but it is a discussion that’s happening in education right now. And though it’s primarily about elementary and high schools, the “dangerous ideas” are portrayed as coming from higher education.

Natasha: Yeah, I think its an attack on public education generally, which of course includes higher education. One of the big takeaways from our research — a point that we wanted to make in this book — is that for the vast majority of people, higher education holds value. And it’s value that is important in the labor market, but also outside the labor market.

Even people who don’t necessarily think that college is essential for a person’s life also think that life gets a lot easier when a person has attended college as opposed to not attended. So I think that’s what most people are thinking, when they think about college. There are of course some people that are steadfastly against college, that care very much about critical race theory. But it really is a contained group of people for whom that message really resonates, I think.