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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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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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