COVID highlights college grads' regret of school choices due to high tuition costs, debt: analysis

New research shows that college graduates are regretting their decisions to attend certain schools once they face post-graduation debt, especially after COVID-19 forced a shift to online learning.

National Association of Scholars (NAS) researcher Neetu Arnold says that COVID-19 has highlighted an intricate web of crises, including record-high debt, exorbitant college tuition costs and bloated school administrations in her report released Thursday. "Why did people feel inclined to take out student loans when they're seeing headlines of $1.5, $1.6, $1.7 trillion of student debt?" Arnold told Fox News. "A lot of parents and students view college as either this necessary right of passage to adulthood ... or it's the only way to gain vocational success or happiness, and so their decisions are made accordingly." While graduates do not regret going to college, many former students – and their parents – do regret agreeing to pay such large tuition costs for their schools of choice rather than taking an alternative route, such as getting a community college education, Arnold found after interviewing 50 parents, students and former students from across the U.S.