More than eight in 10 (82 percent) college-educated Americans view the rising cost of higher education as a top issue, a report from educational fundraising platform GiveCampus finds.
Based on a survey of a thousand college-educated adults, the report, 2019 Economics of Education Report: U.S. College Graduates’ Views on Giving, Student Debt, and the Cost of Education (11 pages, PDF), found that 91 percent of Gen Z (individuals between the ages of 18 and 29), 87 percent of millennials, 85 percent of Gen X, and 74 percent of boomer respondents said the rising cost of postsecondary education was “one of the most important issues” in the 2020 election.
Conducted by Wakefield Research, the survey also found that the cohort which most cares about the issue are people who support their alma mater philanthropically, with 93 percent of respondents who supported their alma mater in the last 12 months saying the rising cost of college should be a top election issue.
According to the report, survey respondents were nearly three times more likely to donate to a charitable cause other than a school than to give to their alma mater (65 percent vs. 22 percent). And while 93 percent of those who gave to their colleges in the last 12 months also gave to a charitable cause, only 31 percent of those who gave to a charity also gave to their alma mater.