From New York Times, I'm Michael Borrow, this is a daily.

New research and polling showed that more and more Americans now down a once unquestioned

fact of American life that going to college is worth it.

Today, Times Magazine contributor Paul Tuff, on why so many high school students and their

parents are souring on higher education and what that will mean for the country's future.

It's Wednesday, September 20th.

Paul, we have spent a lot of time over the past year talking about higher education

on the daily first because the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college admissions.

And second, because of new data showing just how much college perpetuates basically financial

privilege by very much favoring the rich in the admissions process.

But you come at the subject with reporting on something that feels in a way bigger and

even more foundational to the question of higher education, you're finding that fewer

and fewer Americans even believe in the idea of college.

So just walk us through those findings.

Yeah, so about a decade ago, I think Americans were feeling pretty positively about higher

education.

And you could see that in all kinds of public opinion polls, no matter how you asked

the question, people would say, college was worth it, parents would say, I want my kids

to go to college, graduates would say, this was worth it, this experience.

And then at some point in the last 10 years, that really started to shift.

And now when you look at public opinion polls, the answers are all going in the opposite

direction.

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