The majority of Hispanics in the United States are optimistic about higher education, saying that they think college is affordable, even as tuition prices and debt levels continue to rise for post-high school students.

Based on a Gallup-Lumina Foundation survey, via Fusion, 51 percent of Hispanics think "education beyond high school is affordable to anyone in the country who needs it."

Only 19 percent of blacks and 15 percent of whites felt the same way.

Overall, attitudes towards college affordability are not sunny for Americans: a total of 79 percent of Americans do not think that college is affordable.

The reason for Hispanics believing that college is affordable can be attributed to attitudes about education, according to the study's chief.

"This is a population of folks who are very hungry for education and see it as a pathway to a better life," said Brandon Busteed, the Gallup lead on the study and executive director of Gallup Education.

Busteed thinks that many Hispanic immigrants see education as their only pathway to a good job. Another reason attributed to Latinos' optimism is that generally, those without a college degree tend to think that college graduates are better prepared for the workforce. Since Hispanic adults are less likely to have a degree, they may have more optimism about college.

Whites, on average, have more than nine times the wealth than Hispanics, and so one would expect more Latinos, on average, to have difficulty paying for college. Even so, Hispanics are less likely to take out student loans, choosing to work for their college tuition, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

Latino students are also more likely to attend community colleges, which are cost-effective alternatives and closer to home, eliminating the need for room and board expenses.

More young Hispanics are choosing to attend college than ever before. Between 1976 and 2011, the percentage of Hispanic college students rose from 4 to 14 percent, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. In 2012, seven out of 10 Latino high school graduates enrolled in college, according to the Pew Research Center -- a figure that's higher than black or white students.

Almost all of those surveyed believed that U.S. high school students need to go to college or technical school in order to be successful in today's economy.