According to a recently released survey, two-thirds of employees admitted to having regrets about their higher education, specifically when it came to the high cost of college, as well as the area of study. Student loans represented the largest source of regret across all demographic categories.
The vast majority of those with a bachelor degree regret some aspect of their education, according to a PayScale survey released on Tuesday. The survey results also found that the two most common regrets pertained to high cost of higher education, and the individual’s choice in major.
“By far the most common regret reported was student loans,” reported PayScale, “No matter how we cut the data, student loans was the number one regret reported. After this, the most common regret was area of study, but this varied greatly by major. Those who majored in technical or high-earnings fields had the lowest rates of saying they regretted their field of study.”
The report added that 248,000 respondents — all whom at least had a bachelor’s degree — took the online survey from April to May of 2019.
Respondents were asked about their education level, major, school name, degree, and age, among other things. With regards to which aspect they regretted most about their experience with higher education, respondents were able to select one of the following answers:
- Student loans
- Area of study (major, minor, concentration)
- School/institution choice
- Too many degrees/over-education for my career
- Time to complete (too long)
- Academic underachievement
- Not making the right connections (networking with peers/faculty/alumni)
- I have no regrets
Among all of the respondents surveyed, it was discovered that 66 percent — or two out of every three — said that they have regret about their college education, while just 34 percent reported having no regrets.
Of the 66 percent who had regrets, “student loans” was by far the largest category selected at 27 percent, while “area of study” and “not making the right connections” came in second at 12 percent and 11 percent. It was also noted that these three answers were the most common college regrets throughout most of the same groups.
“The burden of student loans is a plight shared by every group in this research, but the degree of student loan regret changes throughout these data cuts,” says PayScale. “Those who are younger, majored in lower-earning fields or attended private universities tended to regret their student loans the most.”
Older Americans were more likely to report that they have no regrets about their education.
The results of the survey are not at all shocking, given that the national student loan debt in the United States is approaching $1.6 trillion, as big-government politicians, such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), use the issue as a means for collecting votes from millions of frustrated Millennials who regret their own decisions.
Among those resentful Millennials even includes 29-year-old Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who says that she wants student loan debt “canceled,” admitting that she, too, still has to pay off her student loans — a responsibility that she would rather not be burdened with.
Regrets about college also varied by major.
“Although no group had a majority of ‘no regret’ responses, fields that lead into high-earning or high-meaning jobs did see a larger portion of respondents that had no regrets about college,” said PayScale, “Engineering, education and computer science majors were among the major groups with the highest rates of ‘no regret’ responses.”
“Humanities majors, on the other hand, had the largest percentage of respondents that had some type of college regret,” added the report.
“Perhaps the most insightful look into choosing a major is to determine which groups regret their area of study the most,” suggested PayScale, “Humanities majors report regretting their area of study at a much higher rate, 21 percent, than other majors.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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