Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree. These across-the-board increases have occurred despite [...]
Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree.
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.
A new Pew Hispanic Center report, using census data, documents a 24% increase in college enrollment from 2009 to 2010 by Hispanics ages 18-24, and compares the statistics for Hispanics with those of other groups.
The gender gap in college education is the subject of a new Pew Research Center report that includes analysis of public opinion data and of Census Bureau statistics. Women surpass men among recent college graduates, and women also have a more positive view of the value of a college education. The report includes Current Population [...]
At a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion, they also have a more positive view than men about the value higher education provides.
College costs are rising, student debt is mounting, and most Americans say college fails to deliver good value for the money. Meantime, only 19% of college presidents say the U.S. system is the best in the world. However, more than eight-in-ten college graduates say college was a good investment for them personally.
These interactive charts explore the attitudes of the public and of college presidents about the value, cost, quality, mission and payoff of higher education.
Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 2008 borrowed 50% more than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed.
Throughout the 20th century, college-educated Americans were less likely to be married by age 30 than Americans without a college degree.
In a reversal of long-standing marital patterns, college-educated young adults are more likely than young adults lacking a bachelor’s degree to have married by the age of 30.
The recession-era boom in the size of freshman classes at four-year colleges, community colleges and trade schools has been driven largely by a sharp increase in minority student enrollment.
Where should college students be counted in the 2010 Census–at their parents’ home or their school address?
The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges.
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About Pew Research Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
