Too Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: What the Public Thinks and Knows about Paying for College.

What Americans know, or think they know, about financing a college education was studied in a comprehensive 9-month study that included 16 focus groups with 150 parents in 8 cities and a telephone survey of 2,000 randomly selected adults between the ages of 21 and 70 from all parts of the United States. Taken together, the central findings of this analysis suggest that the public places an incredibly high value on higher education and plans to do whatever it takes to help their children obtain it, or to obtain it themselves, but that they are worried, poorly informed, and not well equipped to make thoughtful choices. Six central conclusions are drawn: (1) the public thinks that higher education is vitally important and a good value for the money; (2) people worry about the price of attending college and thinks the price can be brought down without affecting academic quality; (3) the public has a distorted view of what it costs to attend college; (4) people have no idea why college costs increase; (5) the public does not know how much financial aid is available to help meet college bills, where it comes from, and how to get it; and (6) the public thinks that college leaders are indifferent to their concerns about the price of attending college. An appendix contains the survey findings in chart form. (SLD)