The latest political polls show Texans are divided when it comes to which candidate will make the best president and whether immigration hurts or helps the U.S.
But a new education poll shows that Texans, very broadly, agree on issues of student debt and the cost of higher education.
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, designed the poll, funded by the nonprofit online university WGU Texas.
In this poll, 93 percent of Texans said student debt is a major problem – a group that comprises both those who carry student loan debt and those who don’t.
“I think that one of the reasons that people are so attuned to these problems is because they still see a high value of return on a college degree,” he says, “so that seems to me to be somewhat at odds with the narrative that college is broken, universities are broken, that because of cost a degree is no longer worth it.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– What other polls indicate people think about not getting a four-year degree
– How college is still a strong aspirational college
– The percentage of people who say their college degree has paid off, or they expect it to (higher than you’d think)
