Record-low number of Americans believe college is ‘very important’: poll

Read the original at New York Post ↗
New York Post · collected 2026-10-04 · by Haley Brown

Quick Summary

A recent Gallup poll reveals that only 31% of Americans now consider post-high-school education "very important," marking the lowest percentage since Gallup began tracking this metric in 1978. This is a significant decline from 2013 when 70% felt college was essential, though around 39% still view it as “fairly important.” The poll indicates that while negative views are prevalent across all political affiliations, Democrats (40%) were more likely than Republicans (22%) and independents (34%) to see college education as very important.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-04, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

A new Gallup poll reveals that only 31% of Americans believe post-high-school education is "very important," marking the lowest percentage since Gallup began asking this question in 1978. This represents a significant drop from 2013, when 70% of Americans felt college was essential. The negative views are consistent across political parties, with Democrats (40%), Republicans (22%), and independents (34%) all less likely to consider college "very important" than in 2019. Despite the decline, around 39% still see college as "fairly important." Gallup conducted its survey by interviewing 1,200 adults from August 3 through August 24, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.

Written for “College Importance Doubt” on 2026-10-05, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.35, but all 2 of its quote(s) are attributed speech - words the article quotes from someone, not the article's own narration, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 55971: attributed speech only · logged 2026-10-04

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
8
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
0%
0 of 8 hedged
Leaning
withheld
no quote in the article backed the model's score
Correction & hedging signals
64.3
corrections and hedging in what we collected; not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
1
Education
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Analyzed 2026-10-04 · how these are computed

Story

📰 College Importance Doubt
Education · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.

Publisher

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Running correction rate · 23 correction(s)
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Who wrote this

Haley Brown
18 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction
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Also by Haley Brown
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 18 articles by Haley Brown →

Topics

Americans Democrats Gallup Independents Republicans

Subjects

Democrats NORP · 3× Gallup ORG · 3× Republicans NORP · 3× Americans NORP · 2× Gallupsurvey ORG · 1× Independents NORP · 1× Lumina Foundation ORG · 1×

Narrative

Negative views of tertiary education were seen across the political aisle, with Democrats, Republicans and Independents all less likely to say college was “very important” than they were in 2019. However, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see college as “very important,” the poll found.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-04
2026-10-04 · New York Post
Record-low number of Americans believe college is ‘very important’: poll · assertive framing

Claims (8 extracted, 0 hedged)

Just three in ten (31%) of Americans said in a new Gallup poll that they believe post-high-school education is “very important.” asserted
education → say → poll
That is the lowest the Gallup pollsters have recorded since they began asking the question in 1978 — and marks a staggering drop from 2013, when seven in ten Americans (70%) said they believed attending university was essential. asserted
attending → record → university
Still, the survey doesn’t show an outright rejection of higher education — around four in 10 people (39%) said they believe attending college is “fairly important.” asserted
attending → show → college
Negative views of tertiary education were seen across the political aisle, with Democrats, Republicans and Independents all less likely to say college was “very important” than they were in 2019. However, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see college as “very important,” the poll found. asserted
poll → see → college
Around 40% of Democrats thought higher learning was very important, compared with just 22% of Republicans and 34% of independents. asserted
learning → think → independents
Gallup surveyed 1,200 adults in the US by phone from Aug. 3 through Aug. 24 for the poll, which has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4%. asserted
which → survey → %
Only 12% of adults said a four-year degree is affordable, a separate Lumina Foundation-Gallup survey from June showed. asserted
survey → say → June
But even so, a third Gallupsurvey found that 59% of parents said they want their child to go straight to a two- or four-year college after high school. asserted
child → find → school
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