Higher education fails to provide students “good value” for the money they and their families spend, more than half of U.S. adults said in a survey, Bloomberg reported.

The debate over higher education’s value “has been triggered not just by rising costs but also by hard economic times,” according to a report from the Pew Research Center. The organization, an independent research group funded by Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, surveyed 2,142 people, aged 18 and older, from March 15 through March 29.

The survey follows a call by President Barack Obama for the United States to achieve the highest college graduation rate in the world by 2020. The country now ranks 12th among 36 developed nations, according to a report last year by the College Board.

In the poll, 75 percent of U.S. adults said college was unaffordable for most Americans, and almost half said student loans had made it harder to pay other bills.

At the same time, 86 percent of college graduates said that higher education had been a good investment for them personally. College graduates said they earned an average $20,000 a year more because of their degrees, a figure that closely matches U.S. Census Bureau data, the survey found.

The report included a separate survey of 1,055 college presidents that was designed by the Pew Research Center and the Chronicle of Higher Education. That survey, conducted
March 15 through April 24, showed concern about diminishing higher education standards and quality.

Some 58 percent of college presidents said public high school students arrive at college less prepared than their counterparts a decade ago, according to the survey. Just 19 percent said the U.S. system of higher education is the best in the world, and only 7 percent said they believe it will be the best 10 years from now.