Voters’ diploma divide widens even as college gets cheaper

The election showed voters are increasingly split by education level and angry about the economy even as college costs ease.

This "diploma divide" is now a defining feature of American politics . It comes at a time when earning a degree remains among the surest paths toward a higher income and when the costs of embarking on it are falling. But many don't seem to notice.

The net costs students pay for four-year degrees have been declining for years, College Board data shows. When adjusted for inflation, in-state students now pay an average of $2,480 in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges this academic year, down 43% from a peak of $4,340 in 2012-13. At pricier four-year private institutions, the net tuition and fees students pay has declined a more modest 15%, to $16,510 from a 2006-07 peak of $19,330.

State and local government funding per student has been growing or holding steady since 2012, the data shows, helping drive costs lower. And institutional grant aid rose by an inflation-adjusted $19.6 billion between the 2013-14 school year and 2023-24. Yet only a quarter of adults see a college degree as critical to landing a well-paying job, a Pew survey this year found, and nearly half say that's less important today than it was two decades ago.

Many people feel "that they're not getting enough back, that a college education isn't worth enough," said Paul Peterson, a professor of education policy and governance at Harvard University. "But that's contradicted by the data. The data says that college education is worth more than ever."

The dissonance shows how higher education has become another slice of the economy where the vibes are worse than the numbers might suggest — and risks exacerbating Democratic losses with working-class voters.

People without a college degree leaned Democratic in 2008, according to exit polls . But this year, 63% supported President-elect Donald Trump, NBC News exit polls found. While he and Vice President Kamala Harris each courted working-class voters, those with a high school education or less were more likely to both voice economic concerns and trust Trump to address them. Voters who said inflation caused them severe hardship backed him 74% of the time.

The electorate's gender divide is also mirrored in college enrollments. Men represented just 42% of undergraduates on four-year campuses in 2022, down from 47% in 2011, Pew researchers found last year. White men without college degrees were among Trump's strongest backers.

If you have a higher level of education, you're almost recession-proof and inflation-proof.

Andrew Smith, director, University of New Hampshire Survey Center

There are many reasons why improving college affordability may not register widely.

Median inflation-adjusted earnings for 25- to 34-year-olds without college credentials have risen in the last decade, Pew found, but the wage gap hasn't narrowed because college grads' pay has swelled, too. The gulf is wide: In 2022, bachelor's degree holders made an average of 59% more than those who only graduated high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics .

"We've got an economy which, if you have a higher level of education, you're almost recession-proof and inflation-proof," said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Inflation disproportionately squeezes lower-income households, which spend more of their income on necessities, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank researchers found last year.

Given other budget pressures — from child care to car insurance — college expenses simply might not have fallen enough to matter. They are still "a real burden for a lot of students," said Robin Isserles, a sociology professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City, where Trump gained ground. Voters in Staten Island and Long Island's Nassau County, for example, supported him at higher margins in this election than they did four years ago.

For many lower-income households, "even the relatively inexpensive tuition is just more than what they can handle," Isserles said. But she speculates that the broader political realignment "is not about inflation right now."

"I've always taught students on the economic margins," she said, many of whom have long struggled to balance work and school, even when they know it will pay off.

Ashley Koning, who directs the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said she was shocked by the election results in her home state of New Jersey, which Harris won by Democrats' narrowest margin since 1992.

"I mean, goodness gracious, we're being labeled a potential swing state now," Koning said. Something else surprised her, too: In her pre-election polling , 65% of New Jerseyans flagged difficulty affording education.

It's true that advertised tuition and fees for full-time undergrads have risen at public and private campuses alike, according to the College Board. And four-year colleges in blue and purple states including New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — where Republicans also made inroads this year — have been posting some of the steepest tuition in the country .

But relatively few students shoulder those full sticker prices. A 2022 Sallie Mae survey found that applicants often aren't well versed in the financial aid process, and just 18% were aware that many students wind up paying far less than schools' listed tuition.

The past year's federal financial aid debacle probably didn't help matters, with months of delays and processing errors scrambling students' enrollment plans and causing some administrators to raise alarms about incoming classes with fewer aid recipients and less ethnic diversity . While the Biden-Harris administration's student loan forgiveness efforts have made a difference for many, years of court wrangling have churned up uncertainty about how much debt students will ultimately be on the hook for.

Even so, at Koning's own university, in-state tuition and fees at the main New Brunswick campus are down 5% from five years ago after adjusting for inflation, hitting $17,930 for the current school year. And that's before financial aid that reduces or even zeroes out many students' bills, with the school estimating over 70% of New Brunswick-based undergrads got at least some aid in 2022-23.

More education can lead to a different kind of political sensibility.

Prof. Robin Isserles, Borough of Manhattan Community College, N.Y.

Koning said she understands Americans' sticker shock over higher education or any other living costs. In her surveys, 85% of respondents said the economy was "very important," and people with a high school education or only some college were much more likely to say the economy was getting worse.

It isn't. While inflation inched higher last month as voters cast ballots, the economy remains strong . A long-forecast recession hasn't materialized, and stock markets have boomed both before and after Election Day . Employers are still hiring even as the job market cools, retail sales look solid heading into the holidays, and wage gains continue to outstrip inflation .

In fact, robust pay growth in blue-collar fields is a key reason many lower-income people have been opting out of college. At the same time, more employers are eliminating degree requirements for salaried roles that once required them.

Enrollment is down at institutions serving lower-income students, especially community colleges, which saw a 12.3% drop between fall 2019 and fall 2022, according to the College Board. That period overlaps with the pandemic, when worker shortages hit a range of industries, forcing employers to boost wages. The National Student Clearinghouse also found significant declines at four-year colleges with high shares of lower-income students in recent years.

In New Hampshire, which Harris also won by a narrower margin than Joe Biden did in 2020, Smith said he wasn't surprised to see less educated voters embrace Trump. Cost-of-living issues came up repeatedly in his polls, but unlike in New Jersey, education expenses didn't.

"It's just not as much of a day-to-day problem," he said.

Isserles said the cultural impact of earning a degree — whether at an elite university or a community college, and whatever its cost — could be accentuating divides. Students in her classes discuss political issues and apply critical thinking skills in ways they might not in the workforce.

"More education can lead to a different kind of political sensibility," she said, mentioning an Ecuadorian American student she taught this year who was at odds with more conservative relatives over immigration.

At any rate, Isserles added, "I had a lot more students who seemed more invested in this election than I remember."