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Is a college degree worth it? This is a question that is consistently on the mind of students and families as they think about the transition out of high school. More importantly, it’s a question that elicits an increasingly bearish response from the American public. A recent poll from the Wall Street Journal and the University of Chicago found that 56% of U.S. adults believe that a four-year college education is “not worth the cost” while just 42% believe that it is. Men were more skeptical than women, a worrying indicator for higher ed given the crisis in male enrollment. The data is clear - a college degree is worth it… if you graduate The irony of these poll results is that the earnings data for college graduates tells a pretty consistent story. According to data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the wage premium for early-career college graduates was 52%, or $17,680. The unemployment rate for college grads was also far lower in the first quarter of 2023 at 2.1% versus 6.9% for young workers without a college degree.