Con 1: College is no guarantee of a job or a better life.

Many college graduates are employed in jobs that do not require college degrees. A staggering 52 percent of college graduates had jobs that did not require their degrees, and 75 percent remain in those jobs for a decade after graduation. [274]

“Having a bachelor’s used to be more rare and candidates with the degree could therefore be more choosy and were more expensive to hire. Today, that is no longer the case,” says Rita McGrath, associate professor at Columbia Business School. A high unemployment rate shifts the supply and demand to the employers’ favor and has made master’s degrees the “new bachelor’s degrees.” In short, too many students earning degrees has diluted the value of a bachelor’s degree.[68] [69]

Plus, college degrees do not guarantee learning or job preparation. A 2023 survey of 800 business professionals found “63 percent saying that recent graduates frequently can’t handle their workload, 61 percent saying they are frequently late to work, 59 percent saying they often miss deadlines and assignments, 58 percent saying that they get offended too easily, 57 percent saying they lack professionalism, 53 percent saying they struggle with eye contact during interviews and 52 percent saying they have poor communication skills.” [275]

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with college itself—college is the right choice for a lot of people. The problem is the attitude that if you want to be successful, you have to go to college—that it’s the golden ticket. We’ve all heard this song and dance through our already confusing high school years. It’s college or bust—college or driving an Uber for the rest of your life. Frankly, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t go to college, and guess what—I don’t drive for Uber. I have a beautiful family, a wildly rewarding life, and a business that just made the Inc. 5000 list for fastest-growing companies in the United States. So, yeah, college is not the only path to success,” explained CEO of Windy City Equipment Service Josh Zolin. [276]

Con 2: Student loan debt strains college graduates, their families, and society.

In spring 2024 there were more than 17.8 million college students in the United States, and borrowers owed $1.75 trillion in total student debt. [271]

Tuition has risen quicker than income, making college unaffordable for many and forcing students to take out loans. The average annual income for men increased 18 percent from 1971 to 2023 and 132 percent for women. However, the average annual tuition rates for public colleges increased about 129 percent in the same time and about 156 percent for private colleges, making college unaffordable for most average people.

A study found that 14 percent of community college students were homeless and 51 percent had housing insecurity issues (inability to pay rent or utilities, for example), while 33 percent experienced food insecurity (lack of access to or ability to pay for “nutritionally adequate and safe foods”), though 58 percent of the students were employed and 42 percent received federal Pell Grants. [111] [112] [113]

Furthermore, student loan debt often forces college graduates to live with their parents and delay marriage, financial independence, and other adult milestones, especially for millennials. In 2013, when the generations was in their late 20s to early 40s, only about 20 percent were homeowners, and most millennials said their student debt has delayed home ownership by seven years on average. Student loan borrowers delayed saving for retirement (41 percent), car purchases (40 percent), home purchases (29 percent), and marriage (15 percent). Fewer than 50 percent of women and 30 percent of men had passed the “transition to adulthood” milestones by age 30 (finishing school, moving out of their parents’ homes, being financially independent, marrying, and having children). By contrast, in 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had completed these milestones by age 30. [38] [39] [121]

Student debt also overwhelms many seniors. Whether they cosigned for a child or grandchild’s education, or took out loans for their own educations, there were 7.2 million student loan borrowers aged 50 and over who collectively owed $400.3 billion. About 8 percent were more than 90 days delinquent in payments. A significant percentage of older borrowers in default were having a portion of their Social Security payments garnished by the U.S. government. [277] [278]  

Student loan debt may not be forgiven in bankruptcy and may not have the same borrower protections as other consumer debt. Medical, legal, credit card, loan, and even gambling debt can immediately be discharged in bankruptcy, but getting student loan debt discharged is much more difficult and rare. Private student loans often do not have the same protections as federal loans like income-based repayments, discharges upon death, or military deferments. [61] [70] [71]

Plus, student debt could cause a larger, more general financial crisis for the country. According to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, student loans are “beginning to have the same effect” on the economy that the housing bubble and crash created. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett agrees that the student loan debt crisis “is a vicious cycle of bad lending policies eerily similar to the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis.” An advisory council to the Federal Reserve also warned that the growth in student debt “has parallels to the housing crisis.”[61] [62] [63] [64] [65]

Con 3: Many people would be better served learning a trade or pursuing work than attending college.

Trade professions are necessary for society to function, require less than four years of training, and often pay above average wages. The high number of young adults choosing college over learning a trade has created a “skills gap” in the U.S., and there is now a shortage of “middle-skill” trade workers like machinists, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers. One survey of U.S. manufacturers found that 67 percent reported a “moderate to severe shortage of talent.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “middle-skill” jobs made up 45 percent of projected job openings, but only 25 percent of the workforce had the skills to fill those jobs. [53] [54] [55]

As of June 2025, about 400,000 manufacturing jobs were unfilled thanks to a scarcity of skilled trade workers. “We spent three generations telling everybody that if they didn’t go to college, they are a loser,” said Ron Hetrick, an economist with Lightcast, a company that provides labor data to universities and industry. “Now we are paying for it. We still need people to use their hands.” [292]

David Gitlin, the chairman and chief executive of Carrier Global, a heating and cooling company, noted that AI (artificial intelligence) servers require about four cooling service technicians per chiller (the cooling system to ensure the servers do not overheat). He said “We have 425,000 technicians today” in the whole of the heating and cooling industry, but with the rise of AI, “we are going to need to hire another four to five hundred thousand over the next 10 years.” [292]

In fact, KIPP charter schools, which have long promoted “college starts in kindergarten,” have shifted focus to “broaden the celebration” of achievements after high school. KIPP joins the International Baccalaureate Organization and other groups that are rethinking college as an asset for everyone. [289]

Con 4: College is no longer a place for unbiased curiosity and learning.

Whether conservative or liberal, “when universities become overtly political, and tilt too far toward one end of the spectrum, they’re denying students and faculty the kind of open-ended inquiry and knowledge-seeking that has long been the basis of American higher education’s success. They’re putting its future at risk,” said New York Times columnist Pamela Paul. [279]

Americans are simultaneously convinced that higher education is placing “too much concern [on] protecting students from views they might find offensive” and that “professors are bringing their political and social views into the classroom.” About 59 percent of American adults believe college politics lean toward one side. [280]

Students are also bringing their strong political viewpoints to campus. Students with liberal views are avoiding colleges in conservative states that have limited abortion access, higher rates of racial inequality, lower levels of LGBTQ+ protections, and a lack of gun control laws. And students with conservative views are avoiding colleges in states with legal abortion, laws protecting people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, and gun restrictions. Almost 30 percent of students from all political backgrounds were concerned about political opinions being silenced and canceled on college campuses. “Perhaps reflecting the drift toward broad political polarization in the U.S. (and elsewhere), we found that students’ gender, race, household income, or region of residence did not arise as statistically significant predictors marking student comfort levels around attending a school in a state they perceive as having an undesirable political landscape,” explain the authors of an Art & Science Group survey. [281]

This climate makes students quick to judge and slow to understand because they’re not taking the opportunity to learn from people of varying political, cultural, social, or economic backgrounds. Living and learning in a political bubble only feeds confirmation bias and makes for more fervent, less tolerant political beliefs.[282]

Instead, students need to experience the real world, where not everyone agrees but where most don’t yell about their politics.