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Sharply rising college costs, enrollments and student debt loads have touched off a debate about the role of higher education in the United States. This report provides a wide-ranging analysis of the attitudes and experiences of the general public, college graduates and college presidents in order to inform that debate. The report is largely based on findings from two Pew Research Center surveys conducted in the spring of 2011 to explore attitudes about the cost, value, quality, mission and payoff of a college education. The general public survey (GP) is based on telephone interviews conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older living in the continental United States. The college presidents survey (P) is based on a web survey conducted with 1,055 college and university presidents. 'College graduates' refers to those who graduated from a four-year college and hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Institutions of higher education includes those referred to as 'institution', 'college' and 'university', except that university does not apply to two-year institutions. 'Private college' refers to private (as opposed to public) not-for-profit (NFP) colleges and universities. This term does not apply to private, for-profit colleges.

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This report is based on findings from a Pew Research Center survey conducted 6-19 December 2011 among 2,048 adults nationwide, including 808 young adults (ages 18 to 34). The report also draws on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Key findings include: young adults were hit hard by the recession; the public says today's young adults have it harder than their parents did (82 per cent say finding a job is harder for young adults today than it was for their parents' generation, 75 per cent say it's harder now to save for the future, pay for college (71 per cent) or buy a home (69 per cent); tough economic times are altering young adults' daily lives and long-term plans; adulthood begins later than it used to (67 per cent of parents with young children said children should be financially independent from their parents by the age of 22 while 31 per cent of today's parents say children shouldn't have to be on their own financially until age 25 or later); for young adults, bad times don't trump optimism; older adults have maintained their standard of living; among the employed, job satisfaction has remained steady but young workers feel more vulnerable than they used to; few young workers see their current job as a 'career' (among all 18- to 34-year-olds, only 30 per cent consider their current job a career compared to 52 per cent among workers ages 35 and older); most young workers say they don't have the education and training to get ahead; and college enrollment rates are tied to employment declines among the young.

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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. Half of all women who have graduated from a four-year college give the US higher education system excellent or good marks for the value it provides given the money spent by students and their families; only 37 per cent of male graduates agree. In addition, women who have graduated from college are more likely than men to say their education helped them to grow both personally and intellectually. Data for this report come mainly from a Pew Research Center survey and Pew Research calculations of the educational data from the Current Population Surveys (CPS). The Pew Research Center survey was conducted by landline and cellular telephone March 15-29, 2011, among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older living in the continental United States.

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Over the course of the past four decades, women have been making significant gains in their labor force participation and educational attainment. This report summarises the results of a Pew Research Center survey about the importance of career, marriage and parenthood. Key findings include: in a reversal of traditional gender roles, young women now surpass young men in the importance they place on having a high-paying career or profession; for men and women of all ages, being a good parent and having a successful marriage continue to rank significantly higher on their list of priorities than being successful in a high-paying job or career; and though women are increasingly focused on college and career, the share who place marriage and parenthood high on the list of priorities is undiminished.

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As online college courses have become increasingly prevalent, the general public and college presidents offer different assessments of their educational value. Just three-in-ten American adults (29 per cent) say a course taken online provides an equal educational value to one taken in a classroom. By contrast, fully half of college presidents (51 per cent) say online courses provide the same value. This report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted in spring 2011. One is a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year private, public, and for-profit colleges and universities.

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Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to this analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the [US] nation's 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor's degree. These across-the-board increases have occurred despite dramatic immigration-driven changes in the racial and ethnic composition of college-age young adults, a trend that had led some experts to expect a decline in educational attainment. College completion is now at record levels among key demographic groups: men and women; blacks, whites and Hispanics; and foreign-born and native-born Americans. Also, a record share of the nation's young adults ages 25 to 29 (90 per cent) has finished at least a high school education. And another record share - 63 per cent - has completed at least some college. Some of the 'credit' for recent increases appears to go to the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the sluggish jobs recovery since. With young adults facing sharply diminished labor market opportunities, their rate of high school and college completion has been rising slowly but steadily since 2007, after having been stagnant during better economic times earlier in the decade. Changing public attitudes about the importance of going to college to succeed in an increasingly knowledge-based labor market may also have played a role.

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The women who serve in today's military differ from the men who serve in a number of ways. Compared with their male counterparts, a greater share of military women are black and a smaller share are married. Also, women veterans of the post-9/11 era are less likely than men to have served in combat and more likely to be critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other ways, however, military women are not different from military men: they are just as likely to be officers; they joined the armed services for similar reasons; and post-9/11 veterans of both sexes have experienced a similar mix of struggles and rewards upon returning to civilian life. This report explores the changing role of women in the military using several data sources. Two Department of Defense publications - 'Population representation in the military forces, FY2010' and 'Demographics 2010: profile of the military community' - provide the overall trends in military participation by gender, as well as demographic and occupational profiles of male and female military personnel. The report also draws on data from two surveys of military veterans: a Pew Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,853 veterans conducted July 28-September 4, 2011, and the July 2010 Current Population Survey (CPS) Veterans Supplement (n = 9,739 veterans). The CPS data provides information about the overall female veteran population (n = 636). The Pew Research survey data provides insight into the experiences of post-9/11 female veterans (n = 135), including the mix of benefits and burdens they see resulting from their service. The analysis of the Pew Research survey should be interpreted with caution due to small sample sizes. However, any differences highlighted in the report are statistically significant.

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