More than 75% of Texans who earn a bachelor's degree see a positive financial return within 10 years, according to a new report — but getting that degree in the first place is becoming an increasingly expensive climb for many families across the state.
The finding comes from the 2026 State Opportunity Index, released Tuesday by the Strada Education Foundation, a nonprofit focused on strengthening education-to-employment pathways. The report places Texas among just eight states — alongside California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and Washington — where at least 75% of bachelor's degree earners experience a positive return on investment within a decade of graduation. That outpaces the national estimate, where roughly 70% of recent public-college graduates are projected to see a payoff in the same timeframe, per the same release. As NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, republishing reporting from The Dallas Morning News, put it: college pays off for most Texans, but affordability remains a hurdle.
“We do see that for most people, higher education is worth it,” Nichole Torpey-Saboe, Strada's vice president of research, said, according to the NBC 5 report. Still, the finding sits alongside a less rosy reality: Texas has been rated only Foundational — not Leading — for affordability at its public four-year institutions in Strada's 2025 Texas profile, even as it earned a Leading mark for affordability at two-year schools.
The Math Behind Paying for a Degree
That affordability gap remains a challenge for students weighing the cost of a degree.
Despite the steep affordability picture, Texas students have actually taken on less debt than their peers in other states. According to the Lumina Foundation's report on Texas students, 31% of students at Texas public four-year institutions took out loans in fiscal year 2022, compared with 38% nationally, and the amount they borrowed on average — $6,326 — came in lower than the $7,318 national average.
Defaults Climbing Statewide
Even with lower average borrowing, Texas carries a troubling default problem. At least one in five Texas student-loan borrowers are in default, meaning they are more than nine months behind on payments, according to reporting from The Dallas Morning News. That outlet also found that the number of Texans who had defaulted on student loans jumped from about 461,000 in September 2025 to 878,000 by March 2026 — a surge that can trigger serious long-term financial consequences for borrowers.
A National Debate Over What a Degree Is Worth
The new findings land amid growing public debate about the value of a degree, as scrutiny mounts around both the cost of college and job outcomes after graduation, per the NBC 5 report. Strada's broader research on affordability offers some context for why that scrutiny exists: the foundation has found that 87% of people who left college without finishing a degree cited cost as the reason, and 77% of adults believe college is unaffordable.
Strada's research has found that fewer than half of students complete a bachelor's degree in four years in most states, underscoring how widespread the affordability and completion challenges are beyond Texas alone.
Still, the core message out of Strada's research remains that a degree tends to pay for itself over time for most Texans who finish one. In the 2025 Index, Texas's estimated positive 10-year return rate for bachelor's degree holders stood at 75%, compared with 73% nationally — a gap that, combined with the new 2026 findings, suggests the state's degree-holders are faring better than many of their peers elsewhere, even as the path to the diploma remains a steep financial climb.
