Many Americans say higher education is too expensive and not worth the cost. But ask them about a nearby community college and the response often changes.
The national numbers on higher education are bleak. A recent Gallup and Lumina Foundation survey found that only 38% of adults had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education. That figure was down from 57% in 2015. In a fall 2025 Pew Research Center survey, seven in 10 Americans said higher education is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56% in 2020.
But two-year community colleges are viewed differently, according to Gallup. Only 12% of adults said four-year colleges do an excellent or good job of keeping college affordable. For community colleges, that figure was 54%. Most people also gave them good marks for quality, access and workforce preparation.
Those numbers align with what community college leaders know from experience. People judge institutions they see firsthand differently from those they only hear about. So familiarity tends to build confidence, while distance tends to breed doubt.
Central to the story
A new study, “Place and the Perceptions of Postsecondary Value,” supports that point by asking whether where people live shapes their beliefs about college. The answer is yes. Community colleges are central to the story. The more community colleges people have nearby, the more likely they are to view college as worth the cost.
The study surveyed a national sample of 2,500 people across three groups: high school students considering college, their parents and adults ages 25 to 44 considering enrollment. It matched each person’s ZIP code to colleges within 25 miles, sorting places using the education desert framework developed by Nicholas Hillman.
The pattern was consistent. The more community colleges nearby, the more positive people’s views of college were. Living in a desert pointed to the opposite.
Price is key
Price helps explain why community colleges matter so much. Among colleges near the people surveyed, average yearly tuition and fees were $4,917 at community colleges and $10,645 at four-year broad-access public colleges. At other four-year colleges, the average was $27,930. A nearby campus with a modest price tag makes college seem possible.
That matters because many families start with a mistaken picture. A 2025 Strada report found that Americans tend to overestimate what college costs. A local campus with a known price can correct that picture. It also seems to make the whole sector look more honest about what it charges.
The new study carefully clarifies what its data can and can’t show. The findings are associations, not proof of causation. But the results align with other research. A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that Black, Hispanic and low-income students are more likely to skip college entirely when they live in a community college desert. Another analysis found that deserts chill college-going, largely because parents and peers there expect less.
Social wealth at work
People often argue that college’s value is a national question about wage premiums, debt and return on investment. The new study suggests that for many families, it’s also a local question about what they can see.
A community college is more than a set of classrooms. It’s part of a community’s civic infrastructure, the relationships, networks, institutions and norms that help people find belonging, deal with hardship and turn learning into opportunity.
When a teenager’s cousin finishes a nursing program at the campus down the road, or a neighbor moves from a welding certificate to a supervisory role, college stops being an abstraction. It becomes a known route with familiar people along it.
That’s social wealth at work. Knowledge, networks and identity combine to make the next step feel real.
Informing parents’ opinions
The parent findings deserve special attention.
Parents are often a young person’s first and most trusted career navigators. When parents doubt that college is worth it, their children hear that doubt at the kitchen table. The study shows that nearby community colleges shape parents’ views even more than students’ views. Outreach that skips parents misses the audience that may matter most.
The adult learner findings matter, too. Adults between 25 and 44 were the group most affected by living in a desert. These are the people that the new Workforce Pell grants and other short-term training efforts aim to reach. A grant helps only if an adult believes a program is within reach and worth the time away from work and family. In a desert, that belief is harder to come by.
Trustees’ role
The study also issues a warning. It notes that college closures and consolidations can create new education deserts or reduce access to community colleges and broad-access campuses. Each closed branch campus is a lost classroom. It may also erode public confidence in higher education.
This places a special responsibility on community college trustees. Most are local residents who answer to the communities their colleges serve. Many see economic development as central to the job. A new survey by New America and the Association of Community College Trustees found that more than 40% of trustees surveyed named economic development as a main reason they serve.
Yet nearly half hadn’t helped their colleges recruit or keep employers. Northeast Community College in Nebraska shows what more engaged boards can do. Its trustees formed a committee that listens to residents across a rural, 20-county area. That input led to a new truck-driving training site in South Sioux City.
Trustees who build those local ties make the college visible. That’s how confidence grows.
Six recommendations
Here are six suggestions for what to do next.
1. Map the trust gap. States and college systems should overlay education-desert maps with local data on how residents view the value of college. Focus outreach where both access and confidence are weak.
2. Make parents a primary audience. Parents typically shape students’ decisions more than anyone. Colleges and high schools should host family nights, arrange campus visits, and publish plain-language guides to cost and outcomes.
3. Bring the campus to the desert. College leaders and states should use dual enrollment, satellite sites, mobile training labs and partnerships with libraries, employers and high schools to give residents a physical connection to college, even where no campus exists. Online programs work best when paired with local in-person support.
4. Lead with real prices and real people. Sticker shock deters enrollment. Colleges should publish net prices and program outcomes in clear terms and tell the stories of local graduates.
5. Make trustees the stewards of local trust. Boards should track how residents in their service areas view the college, hear directly from underserved and rural communities, and link programs to regional employers. When budgets are tight, and closures or consolidations are on the table, trustees can argue that a campus’s local presence adds value.
6. Link Workforce Pell outreach to place. States approving Workforce Pell programs should check whether adults in education deserts can reach them, in person or online and plan outreach accordingly.
The national debate over whether college is worth it will continue. But trust is built up close.
For millions of Americans, the community college is where they first see what college can do for people like them. In an era of declining confidence, the most persuasive case for higher education may be the one a family can drive to.
