Twenty-five percent of college graduates believes that higher education is not worth the price of attendance, with the associated costs of tuition, room and board, and books, according to a new Zogby-Scoop44 interactive poll.

According to these figures, 18 to 29 year olds with college degrees are likelier to believe the costs are worth it (62%), while 28% of these young Americans disagree.

Despite the steep loans current and future students will face, young Americans — specifically 18 to 29 year olds — are more inclined to believe that higher education is worth the cost — more than half (55%) agreeing, while 35% disagree and 10% are not sure.

Among respondents between 18 and 24, a considerable majority (58%) agrees that tuition is worth the cost of attendance and the resulting degree. Similarly, 60% of the averaged older demographic brackets (55 to 69 and 70+) said the costs are worth it.

However, in a possible “not-out-of-my-back-pocket” age barrier, poll respondents between 35 and 54 — presumably a new generation of parents paying for their children’s education — have muddier views. While 47.9% said they agreed, nearly 38% — the largest naysayer demographic — said higher education is not worth its growing cost.

Still, graduates with degrees (63%) are more likely than those without degrees (44%) to believe higher education merits the current price tag — siding with former Harvard University president Derek Bok who often quipped, “If you think that education is expensive, consider the cost of ignorance.”

Ellie Choi, a sophomore at Barnard College in New York City, said higher education is important to advance in the job market today — and to win ultimate socioeconomic and breadwinner status.

“I need an education, and college is really the only place where I think I’ll get it, so I might as well make it worth the money I’m paying,” she said.

Choi, a graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., the elite private boarding school, also grapples with the post-prep phenomenon, a student population already exposed to advanced college-style curricula and academic opportunities.

Kelly Pilchard, a sophomore studying humanities at Georgetown University, is more skeptical of the need for increasingly “exorbitant costs.”

“Perhaps I’m being naive in feeling the cost of tuition is even slightly justified by the fact that all workers here earn a living wage which increases as the cost of living in DC does, as well, because I know there are many other factors that play into the cost that are not so social justice-oriented. So, in the end, I guess it’s still insanity.”

Overall, 52% of Americans believes the costs associated with a college education are worth it, while 33% disagree.

Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education noted for his theory of “multiple intelligences”, wondered if respondents recognize that the “sticker price of elite schools covers only one-half to two-thirds of the actual cost.”

In an interview, Gardner asked of the poll respondents, “Do they know the results of students about the difference in lifetime income between those who do and do not graduate from four year colleges?”

He added, “It’s a bit like health care—how many individuals with strong opinions actually know any of the facts about what the various bills in the house and the Senate propose?”

Patricia Graham, a longtime professor of history and education at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, says that most data suggest “that college graduates are paid considerably more over a lifetime than high school graduates.”

Graham cautions, however, “Making more money, though, is not the only reason to go to college.”

She also commented on the comparative expenses and graduation rates of private versus public undergraduate institutions.

“The more complicated question, however, is whether an expensive, non-selective private institution, is a better choice than an in-state public institution, which costs substantially less. Generally, the more selective the institution is, the more likely the student is to graduate, often because such institutions attract stronger students but also because they also offer many more supports to students who encounter difficulties of any kind while in college.”

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