Most teens — and girls especially — see college as key to jobs and life skills, AP-NORC poll says

PHOENIX (AP) — Most American teenagers say it is important to them to graduate from college, with girls especially describing it as a key step for accomplishing their life goals, according to a new poll.

Teenagers also generally are more upbeat than adults on college despite concerns about tuition costs, soaring student loan debt and the politicization of many issues in higher education.

Overall, about 6 in 10 teens say it’s “extremely” or “very” important to them to graduate from college, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted this spring among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. That compares with about 4 in 10 adults who said the same in a UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll from 2022.

The survey also found that many teens think it will be harder for them to achieve major life milestones — like owning a home, raising a family or reaching a good standard of living — than it was for their parents.

For Ry-n Uyeda, 17, the biggest concern about college is the prospect of being away from her home in Waianae, Hawaii. Uyeda is already taking college-level courses in high school and hopes to play softball at a university on the West Coast.

Uyeda said she wants to develop time management skills and endurance to handle the pressures of being a student-athlete. But she hopes the college experience does not change who she is.

“I want to remember where I came from and the values that I’ve learned from here,” said Uyeda, who attends Waianae High School. “Going to a new place with new people in a new environment, I just want to still be myself.”

Seven in 10 teenage girls in the survey said it was at least “very” important to them to graduate from college, compared with 54% of teenage boys.

The disparity reflects a growing gender gap in college degree completion. In 1995, young men and women were equally likely to hold a bachelor’s degree. Since then, a gap has emerged, with 47% of U.S. women ages 25-34 completing a bachelor’s degree compared with 37% of men, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data.

Teens raised in households with higher incomes and parents who went to college themselves also are more likely to view higher education as important.

Jalena Crawford, a 16-year-old high school junior, said she hopes to attend Grand Canyon University or Arizona State University to become a professional American Sign Language interpreter. She said her plans have been encouraged by relatives with college degrees and it would be “weird” not to consider higher education.

“I didn’t really start thinking about college until I started liking ASL. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do,” Crawford said.

Most teens see a college education as a vital step for their future career prospects, although they see other benefits as well.

About 7 in 10 teenagers said completing college is “extremely” or “very” important for getting good jobs, and about 6 in 10 teenagers say a degree is valuable in learning necessary life skills. About half of teens see college as key for either becoming a more informed member of society or forming their personal identity, according to the survey.

Teenagers have many of the same life goals as adults, such as owning a home and raising a family, the poll found. About 8 in 10 teenagers value being able to pursue what they enjoy, having a good standard of living and having a successful career.

But few teenagers believe those goals have gotten easier to achieve for their generation compared with their parents.

About 7 in 10 teenagers believe owning a home has become harder to achieve for them compared with their parents, according to the poll. Just over half of teenagers say it’s become more challenging for their generation to raise a family. About half say that about having a good standard of living, having a successful career or traveling the world. Fewer, about 4 in 10, say it’s grown harder to graduate from college or be able to pursue what they enjoy.

Evarist Bego, 22, graduated earlier this year from the University of Southern California with a joint degree in business and film. He said he recalls wanting to go to college and then work his way up in his chosen industry but “that's just not how it works anymore.”

It's harder than he anticipated to find a job, which he said may owe partly to the creative industry he chose. He sees mostly temporary positions, like internships or fellowships.

“So many jobs that I see are entry-level, but then they require three-plus years of experience. I have interned in school, I had some experience, but it’s not enough,” he said.

Sanders reported from Washington.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,060 teens ages 13-17 was conducted April 30-May 14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel Teen Panel, which is designed to be representative of teenagers in the U.S., and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for teens overall is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Tommy Uyeda, left, watches his daughter Ry-n, puts away her softball gear after practice, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Ry-n Uyeda, 17, a senior at Waianae High School, poses for a portrait, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Ry-n Uyeda runs through a catching drill, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Ry-n Uyeda runs through a catching drill, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Ry-n Uyeda warms up during a softball practice, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)