Most Parents Still Want Their Children To Attend College: Gallup

Even in the face of lingering public doubts about the value of a college degree, the majority of American parents still want their children to attend college according to a new survey conducted by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation.

Among U.S. parents with a child younger than 18, 59% say they would prefer their child attend college right after high school, with 40% indicating their first option is for their child to enroll in a four-year college or university and 19% opting for them to go to a two-year or community college.

Smaller percentages envision some other choice besides a two-year or four-year education. About one in six (16%) prefer their child enter a job training or certification program, 5% want their child to join the military, and 6% want him or her to enter the workforce. Most of the rest, 13%, believe their child should take time off before deciding the next step.

The results are based on a web survey that Gallup conducted June 2-15, 2025 with a sample of 2,017 U.S. adults aged 18 and older. The sample included 554 parents with children under 18. Parents with more than one child younger than 18 were asked to answer questions about their oldest child who had not yet graduated from high school.

Partisan Political Differences

As is typically the case with public attitudes about higher education, political affiliation affected parental preferences for different types of post-high school experiences. Democrats (73%) were most likely to favor a college path, followed by a majority of independents (57%). Less than half of Republicans (48%) said the same.

The majority of Democrats (53%), compared with 40% of independents and only 27% of Republicans, would most like to see their child attend a four-year college. There were no meaningful differences associated with political affiliation regarding whether parents wanted their child to attend a two-year or community college: 21% of Republicans, 20% of Democrats and 17% of independents chose this option.

Republicans and independents were more likely than Democrats to think their child should enroll in a job training or certification program or go right into the workforce.

Educational Attainment

Parents who had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher (75%) were much more likely than those without a four-year degree (50%) to want their child to enroll in a two- or four-year college. Parental preferences for different pathways were consistent by race/ethnicity and gender, but parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher (58%) were nearly twice as likely as those without a college degree (30%) to prefer that their child go to a four-year school.

Other Findings

The survey also asked adults without a child under age 18 the same questions regarding other relatives or children in their lives that they knew, such as a nephew, niece, grandchild or family friend who had not yet graduated from high school.

Similar to the parents, most non-parents prefer that the children they know pursue a college pathway. The majority (55%) say they would prefer the child enroll in either a four-year (32%) or two-year (23%) college immediately after graduation.

Enrolling in a job training or certification program was the next most popular option among non-parents (23%). Relatively few non-parents preferred that the child take time off (12%), join the military (6%) or enter the workforce directly (3%).

Also, like the views held by parents, non-parents’ preferences was associated with their political affiliation and educational attainment. Democrats (60%) and college graduates (63%) were the most likely to favor a college pathway, particularly for four-year degrees. Many Republicans and those without a college degree favored two-year colleges or job training programs. Nonetheless, across all groups, a college education, whether a two- or four-year degree, was the most favored pathway following high school.

The survey’s results suggest that the employment advantages and economic benefits associated with earning a bachelor’s degree may help explain why attending a four-year college remains the preferred post-high school pathway for many families and U.S. adults.

And the results are consistent with an uptick in American’s confidence about higher education in general. Recently, 42% of those surveyed by Gallup said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, a six percentage-point gain over the past two years. Similarly, those saying they had little or no confidence declined from 32% a year ago to 23% today.

That gain in confidence represents the first time the Gallup survey has seen an increase in a decade, even though confidence in higher education remains substantially below where it was in 2015, when a majority of Americans (57%) were confident about it.