A Gallup poll shows the percentage of Americans saying college is “very important” has fallen to 35%
Please note The Perceived Importance of College Hits New Low
Americans have been placing less importance on the value of a college education over the past 15 years, to the point that about a third (35%) now rate it as “very important.” Forty percent think it is “fairly important,” while 24% say it is “not too important.”
When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% found in 2013 and 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as not too important has more than doubled since 2019 and compares with just 4% in 2010.
Perceived Importance Down Among All Societal Groups
Notably, the percentage of Democrats rating college as very important has fallen almost as steeply as that of Republicans since 2013. However, most Democrats who do not view college as very important now describe it as fairly important, while few say it’s not too important (49% and 9% of Democrats, respectively). By contrast, Republicans are equally likely to rate it as fairly important (39%) as not too important (39%). In fact, Republicans are about twice as likely to say college is not too important as to say it is very important (20%).
Similarly, just four in 10 college graduates say college is very important, but few (12%) dismiss it as not too important, while 46% say it’s fairly important. This contrasts with non-college graduates, who are just as likely to say college is not too important (32%) as very important (31%), with the plurality (37%) calling it fairly important.
Bottom Line
Confidence in higher education has declined much more among Republicans than Democrats over the past decade, with criticism of it for having left-leaning political agendas leading the reasons higher ed skeptics point to. Specifically, the latest Lumina Foundation-Gallup research finds that 38% of Americans who lack confidence in higher education cite politics, with another 32% saying college doesn’t teach the right things.
By contrast, the dwindling perception that college is very important has occurred equally among both major parties, suggesting a broader explanation is required. While the new survey didn’t explore the reasons directly, the high cost of college, recent attention to the benefits of trade schools, the growth of online learning and microcredentials, and the potential for revolutionary changes in the labor market presented by recent advancements in AI are all possibilities.
Useless Degrees
Most college degrees are nearly useless. What exactly is one supposed to do with a degree in English literature, psychology, art, religion, or dozens of other nearly worthless options?
Students graduate with tens-of thousands of dollars (or more) in debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Many end up getting a job that will not let them dream of buying a house, while struggling to pay rent.
The cost of education has soared hundreds of times more than overall inflation and salaries to pay back the debt.
1971 Flashback
When I started college in 1971, the cost per semester for an engineering degree at the University of Illinois was $250 per semester.
For the UI 2024-25 academic year, the annual tuition and fees for in-state students were approximately $16,004, while out-of-state students faced around $35,124 in tuition and fees.
In 1971, the average hourly wage was $3.53. It’s now $31.46, up 8.9 times.
The cost of tuition has gone up 64 times.
Yet, a college education then was far more valuable than it is today.
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The 2020 Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce claims that liberal arts degrees have a 25% higher ROI over 40 years than STEM degrees although they have a 40% lower ROI over 10 years. The median ROI for liberal arts degrees after 40 years is $918000; the median for all degrees is $723000.
Meanwhile elsewhere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_recruiting_of_new_graduates#Criticism. South Korea is strict too.
A similar thing exist in my deindustrialized Europpean country. Although not having to be in the graduation year, in the eye of local recruiters, if you don’t have a degree from a highly rated state owned stem school then it means you aren t smart. But if you are trully smart, just take the required hassle to pass the degree. Hence why among other thing we had Énarque (from the school) instead of Goldmanites
Experience is valued only after the degree. And even then, there s almost no possibility to acquire higher ranked jobs through experience (if you are at the minimal wage it will likely be for life)
Today’s youth would be better off taking apprenticeships in plumbing, carpentry and the like. Plumbers will become the fastest growing class of new millionaires in the near future.
Plumbers will be replaced by robots.
And there are an awful lot of people who ar enot good at working with their hands and/or may not want to spend the next 40-50 years doing so.
Plumbers will be screwed like all the other trades of there’s a big housing crash
Homeowners can put off a lot of repairs, but water leaking into their homes or a broken toilet needs to be dealt with quickly.
And we are FAR away from robots being able to crawl under a sink and sweat a pipe.
Yeah but how much of demand for plumbing comes from emergency maintenance/repair and how much from new construction and elective renovations?
A return to sanity in house prices can lead to many of the large number of houses held empty as investments being sold and used for living as they should, so the plumbing, electric, structure etc gets used, eventually needing repair work by trades. I think the housing, asset bubble is actually worse for those workers along with the stability of the whole country.
It is about supply and demand. There is a plethora of supply for those with Bachlors Degrees and not enough Demand so the value decreased. The return on investment to get a Bachelor’s Degree is not worth the price that is paid. So demand for the Degree declines.
The value of college depends on the need for the skills courses developed. College is absolutely necessary for STEM careers and professional licensing.
College prof of 40+ years, here (business). Affordable, too. Sad to have seen so much energy of colleagues squandered on dead-end political indoctrination. Another issue is the abysmal scores in high school math and reading: by now these kids’ parents grew up on inferior garbage culture coming out of a digital surveillance, distraction and advertising device, bedeviled with conflicts of interest they can’t start to grasp (being in that self-reinforcing loop of ignorance). One can’t imagine what one can’t imagine. I knock myself out to tune their brains for their future, and sharpen them up, to not be suckered, but the key difference already is the parenting they received, from long ago. Plenty of native born youths of European lineage have the worst English skills, and virtually nonexistent history knowledge. My liberal arts education is one of the most valued things of my existence. Now even the word “liberal” in a nanosecond brings a sneer from people who have no comprehension of what I mean.
Here in CA, only 48% of students read at grade level and only 36% can do math at their grade level! The kids keep getting pushed forward, even when they are failing, which is wrong.
So in 2030, what’s it going to be? In the last 5-6 years, it’s dropped ~17%
20%
And that might be optimistic. Hell, it might be close to single digits.
Colleges are important. U get education, grow up, find a mate, find a job and friends for life. Don’t lie to your kids: colleges can be tough: the competition for grades, tests, mate, friends, dine with strangers, roommates and being accepted…that’s the reality of colleges.
Colleges are important for the Professionals and with the advent of AI that will be in decline.. Trade schools would be a better avenue for most youngsters. We need to bring back the Master and Apprentice method of teaching youngsters a trade. AI is going to displace many professionals including Lawyers and Medical Doctors. But we will always need Craftsman’s such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and masons. Those will be in demand in the near future.
Here’s what Google AI tells me:
So maybe people feel that way, but if the AI is right, it seems that they are wrong.
“An education is to get you to the point where you can begin to learn”
I took my education seriously and just as when I was in grade school and high school I was curious enough to learn many skills. Both physical and mental.
For me, life was about learning and attempting to compete at the highest levels of athletics, academics and ethics. A rare combination according to my school counselors.
Over the years I have hired many people. I search for curious people and often ADD spectrum because I want people that can be creative and physically competent. I look for athletes before college degrees because the people tend to be healthier and easier to train. There is a clear advantage to people with outside interests in athletic or physical hobbies.
16 – 20 minutes of aerobic activity cases the body to release BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor). Basically it is miracle grow for the brain.
Working for me is challenging and fun, Being a mentor is an important function for me as an employer.
I’ll cut to the chase as Its Friday and I do not have time to really tackle the College/No College debate. I think curiosity, intellect and experience are more important than a degree. Some 10 year old kids have more experience than 30 year old college graduates and employers need to be able to recognize potential more than narrow skill sets.
.02
Great insight here. I wish they had the same surveying in Australia as the problem here is twice as bad as the US.
Though we are now in the situation where students are pushed into post graduate programs to squeeze more money out of them. Only half the graduates can get a job with just a graduated degree these days.
Education is important but universities are an aging institution. You can learn more online than paying a fortune in a university.
But many professions still require it. Hence I returned to study Engineering. Which work quite well for me. But I know plenty of engineers without jobs or a simply glorified sales reps which a degree is useless for.
Yes, I have found in my own life experience (and in the data out there) that nothing is guaranteed in a market economy – not a chicken in every pot, not a mule on every farm acre and not a specific job with a college degree.
But a college degree – statistically – will yield the majority of those with it higher wages and more job opportunities over time than a life without one. Is it worth it financially? Don’t we ask ourselves that same question any time we purchase anything? if you pay too much, the answer is probably no. If you shop around with a realistic cost-benefit analysis, the answer is probably yes.
Mish like you said a few years ago. Most jobs requiring a college education could be done without the education. Its just employers using it as a way to weed out potential job seekers.
Its a complex issue that every kid should look into before commitment. Especially with ai added to the land scape.
I have a kid in the 8th grade. I stress good grades and try to teach a good work ethic with an understanding of how the world works. Good grades and good decisions gives you options to make choices leading hopefully to a happier life.
Bad grades and bad decisions limit your choices in so many ways.
Imo ai is gonna sink a bunch of white collar jobs. Knocking everyone down a notch. Think of. If you are a contractor. Who would you hire. A college educated person or someone of that caliber or a guy who has a drug problem and does not show up for work.
Ai / robots / outsourcing of jobs / immigrants/ Throw in some global warming / national debt for good measure. The world is a lot harder than when was young
I always think that schools should do field trips to the 7-11 or to watch cashiers in supermarkets, etc. with the warning that this is where you end up working at when you screw-up in school.
College might be best viewed for many as at least a finishing school, a chance to gain maturity and life experience outside of the tent provided by your parents for the past 18 years.
As such, it wouldn’t be worth tens of thousands of $$$. The military might be a better choice for many who need to gain maturity. Or simply traveling for a couple of years.
Not everyone wants to practice a trade. And those trade jobs ARE going to replaced by robots over the next 10-20 years. As this happens, the opportunities for continued work in the trade will decline.
As to:
This is shortsighted BS, Knowledge is valuable, even if it doesn’t result in immediate earning power upon graduation. People in the disciplines you cite above take classes in other areas such as business that can help them after graduation in finding work but also becoming a more rounded person that has value in society.
And today, even with supposed valuable degrees in computer science, many recent graduates are finding it very difficult to secure employment. This is primarily due to AI deployment and adoption. The prospects of graduates in engineering/CS/ect. are not going to improve moving forward!
The parents footing the bill contradicts that view. As a matter of fact, the parents stopping footing all the bills would achieve the same view.
Self sufficiency is not the only lesson learned in life. I mean, maybe it is for some folks. But if my sons rely on me into their 20’s only to end up with more rewarding and enriching careers, that’s A-OK by me. It’s simple Darwinism to give your offspring every advantage possible.
Today’s employer isn’t seeking a well rounded liberal arts person. Today, specific skills are the ticket to employment. Even business courses are generic to the point of being worthless.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
–Robert A. Heinlein (found in the “Intermissions” of Time Enough for Love, and in the separately published Notebooks of Lazarus Long)
They don’t want human beings silly! They want worker drones for their bug person society!
Yet, a college education then was far more valuable than it is today.
Good quote.
I think it is interesting that I read the following headline today too. Maybe a college degree is worth something?
Americans are richer than ever — at least on paper
Americans just got trillions of dollars richer, though most won’t find the extra wealth in their wallets.
US household net worth climbed to a record $176.29 trillion in the second quarter, according to data released Thursday by the Federal Reserve.
That’s an increase of $7.3 trillion from the first quarter of this year — and about $46 trillion more than in the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic upended the economy.
The surge was largely driven by Wall Street’s continued rally.
The value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares jumped by $5.5 trillion in the second quarter, while real estate holdings added another $1.2 trillion, the Fed’s quarterly Financial Accounts of the United States report showed.
If you divide $46 trillion by 145 million U.S. families, that comes to an average of $317k of wealth gains per family in just 5 years.
But of course, the wealth it not evenly divided.
FYI – The average wealth of an NVDA employee is $500 million. Many are billionaires.
Don’t discount you are denominating in dollars which are declining in value due to inflation. The actual, net increase is much smaller.
The last 40+ years? Thank a high school guidance counselor!
Stem colleges have a few shows/year with dozens corp exhibitors. Their booths have scientists, engineers, project mgr, MBA looking for students from second year for summer jobs, grads, masters and PhD for full time jobs. No resumes. No online. Face to face interviews. Half an hour talk, Q&A, that can’t be done without being in college. That’s the real value of colleges.
Congrats, Mish; I knew as soon as I saw this blog title you would have tons of comments within a few hours.
And you do! I must admit you have a real talent in bringing out the hubris mongers with this type of ‘analysis’.
I’ve read through all the comments, and I think only one commenter – Creamer – alludes they work in higher collegiate education. And yet most of the commenters here absolutely ‘know’ why college is a joke today. Not “I think this is the case (but I’m only a retired accountant)…” but mostly “College is not necessary and is a joke because…” Even though they acknowledge in other blogposts of yours of the value of a market system of individual choice.
And it’s even better when they relate they are not in the higher education production system, but they supposedly have a valid factual-based statement to relay to the rest of us (even though many here openly state they haven’t been within the college system for 50+ years LOL).
My colleagues keep wondering at my barrel laughs during my lunch break as I read these comments, so I better get back to actual work. Thanks Mish
Are there only four data points over 15 years in this Gallup poll (from the graphic you’ve borrowed)? Because context is always important.
In 2010, the US unemployment rate was 10+% after the Great Recession (much higher for younger college-aged people without significant job experience). We should expect people to value college education alot when jobs are scarce.
Since then, the unemployment rate has decreased steadily for 15 years to 3% (now 4%). With jobs so easy to find, we should expect people to not value costly education as much (basic supply and demand analysis). *Not this poll ‘data’ does not appear to show specific results during the COVID non-business-related recession era – only 5 years afterwards.
Let’s come back in five more years after the next rip-roarer of a real recession and ask the survey respondents the same question; I would venture we won’t see the same low percentages for the worth of a college education
Yes, a big downturn in housing and suddenly all those trades guys are not feeling so cocky any longer. And data continues to show huge financial advantages for people with college degrees. There’s a lot of doom and gloom about AI at the moment but there is no evidence that the trend line favoring college degrees is actually broken.
Yes, there is. It’s been widely reported now for at least 3 months that college graduates are having a pretty tough time securing employment. There’s a reason why that graph shows a 50% reduction in the importance of college over 15 years. That same 50% reduction will happen again within 5 years or so.
Computer Science grads are finding it extremely difficult to find work. That’s a FACT and is only going to get worse. If we do hit a recession, then what do you think corporations are going to spend the next 2-3 years doing? That’s right. They’ll cut costs & start accelerating plans to replace some white-collar jobs with AI.
Tons are articles talk about AI’s looming eventual COMPLETE takeover of programing. Tons of sources talk about how major software companies like MS & Google are using AI for at least 20-25% of their code development right now. And I would suspect the testing aspect of coding is even higher. The Amazon CEO has been saying for at least 9 months that people need to stop going to college to learn how to code & related fields. Their AI has got that down.
Elon Musk says Grok 4 is as smart as any PHD alive and is suggesting that the next version will achieve AGI in 2026.
We are within 10 years of a college degree becoming near worthless.
The moment ASI arrives by 2030, almost every job on earth will be at risk, including trades. Advances in robotics are happening at increasing cadence as well. although not nearly as fast as AI. However, it’s jaw dropping what humanoid robots can do today. By 2030, the dawn of ASI & robotics having near limitless ability will be arriving.
This is not a break in the trend line. It’s worsening economic conditions and the usual topic of the moment in the media. What do you think will happen to trades in a housing downturn?
A college education helps you learn how to think critically. What you’re doing here is not that.
Chinese colleges are worthless. Every year they produce million of smart stem students, but the youth unemployment rate is 45%. They paid a lot of money to invest in high paying jobs and a better future, but they can’t find a job. To hide their frustration they rent spaces in office buildings, herd together with unemployed zoomers like them. They get out to show that they have a job. They on Utube and Ticktock which are showing smiling zoomers with a Benz. Chinese grads have fake jobs. They are hiding under the mattress bc they are so ashamed. Lying Flat is the opposite trend. Young people avoid colleges, stay in their basements for months. Get part time jobs to get buy. No houses or apt of their own. No marriage and kids. Japan have their own discarded people. In the EU 20% of young people are not educated, trained and not seeking employment. Trump’s tariffs will accelerate their decline. These millions of unemployed Chinese zoomers are still demure.
Get woke go broke.
How very insightful. Did you make that up yourself? You’re so very special!
Hits the nail on the head. Sounds like you’ve sunk some bucks into kid’s college.
I sank a lot of bucks into my kids’ college educations. They’re in the last half of their 30s now, and their combined income is >2 million a year. Mom and Dad are quite happy with the results. One was an art major and one majored in chemistry. They’re really smart, so they did not vote for Trump.
You skipped math didn’t you.
A million a year average is in top 1 percent of income earners. I’m interested to hear their occupations.
Your kid serves him fries.
I don’t think you could flip burgers.
It’s a noble profession. You must be so proud.
“What a show!”
Sounds like it’s been quite a few years since you’ve been on a college campus.
If you think all of higher collegiate education is “woke”, you’ve been on ZH for too long. Take a break, visit a campus, and ask students how much “wokeness” the majority of their classes and hourly experiences entails. Maybe you won’t sound so much like a tool for a specific cause
Maybe, just maybe, he will still sound like a tool.
Agree with Mish about humanities degrees, many will not result in well paid employment at least in the UK.
That’s one opinion; thanks
But you could also look up some data fairly easily. Here’s a 2020 article on a study of UK students getting jobs out of college: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/10/humanities-graduates-are-just-as-employable-do-the-sciences-really-lead-to-more-jobs
Spoiler alert: there was no significant difference between STEM and humanities degrees
Same salary?
How about “same level of professional engagement and interest” or “same level of satisfaction” etc? Nobody should expect arts majors to get paid like doctors.
I think I can speak from the inside when I tell you what the problem is here. The problem is that university management and university teachers are seldom on the same level.
One is running the place like a business, the other is desperately trying to match the higher quality public funded universities of Europe. Want a dirty little secret? European universities are better now because of this. Every major American University only cares about extracting value from students, be that through valuable and prestige gaining research or cold hard cash.
This means that teachers who actually know the material and how to get that material employed are shoved to the side when they suggest things. Notice how their pay hasn’t gone up all that much despite universities gorging themselves on your money? Universities want “campus life”, they want football and half-billion dollar stadiums and merchandise to go with. Departments are busy trying to pay for themselves by being useful to local partners so they can have desks that aren’t from 1995.
On the topic of useless majors. Business and economics are two of the worst. The idea of a “useless major” is dumb, but majors that are oversaturated or badly in need of a rethink are absolutely rife. And because universities run like a business instead of a school like they’re supposed to be, they encourage this problem by trying to funnel people away from “useless” majors (read: ones they refuse to invest in) and into the hot new thing of the year. Come four years later, the hot new thing field has way too many people, students can’t get a job, students feel cheated.
Mind you, you can get a great value from education here. You just have to be a smart shopper. Go into a field/major that’s got long term demand (cyber security, library science, biology) and then get a minor in something cool that could be workable as a career but isn’t a safe bet (English, history, ect). If you get an in in your dream field, you’ve got plenty of time to switch majors to your passion and then ride out strong. It’s just about students needing to be able to go chase that first though, and most won’t.
This is an ethics problem plain and simple, not a university one. Until American universities stop unashamedly acting like professional sports franchises and trying to squeeze every last red cent out of students and faculty to feed that engine, Americans are stuck paying more for a worse deal. Capitalism shouldn’t be applied to things where monetary competition doesn’t make sense at all. There’s a reason the military is paid for by the government and is not 5 competing private armies trying to undercut each other. State institutions and aggressive monetization just don’t mix.
Man! did you hit the nail on the head.
Education relates to another ‘item’: Transportation. HUH??? here ya go: public transportation has NEVER made a ‘profit’, ever. It has never ever even paid for itself. Heck, it does not even make the cost! Public individual personal transportation never pays for itself; it is a common shared public good. It is for everyone and everywhere. Same w/education. It is a common good, and until USA higher ed administration discovered how to milk that cow, education never paid for itself. Treating education as another problem w/a capitalist solution is an invitation to disaster; and this statement is from a capitalist!!
I’m writing an essay on this idea but I think genuinely that our capitalism is becoming crapitalism. It’s pursuit of money with no idea what to do with it.
The idea is “grind the poor into the dirt”. Always has been. This is what made Jesus get the whip out.
i’ve been going to college for over 45 years. just to learn and be around smart people. been wonderful. dovetails nicely with my chosen career of stock trading which only takes an hour per day at most. i did tech in 80s gerrymandering for NYS and worked for NASA doing GIS and remote sensing………..i keep learning on campuses around the country. from ivy league to local CC. coast to coast. university is a great place to be.
It is and I love working in it. There’s definitely plenty of value for savvy people who actually care about what they study. The problem is, I don’t think many do. A lot of people think it’s just an extension of high school, and treat it like such. Those people won’t get their value back because they don’t really care about it beyond thinking it’ll give them a good job where they don’t work. A depressing mindset I think is unfortunately cultivated by our public schools.
i agree. i love learning new things. i also love learning how wrong i have been on many topics from arts to science to history……..it’s a form of unlearning. also being around such curious young adults is wonderful for the soul. best use of my time and money in life, attending college for many decades.
the professors are wonderful. i am amazed every semester how great and knowledgeable they are.
That’s because if it isn’t your absolute passion you won’t make it. It pays like crap, the hours are wonky (well over 40 with a 4-5 class load), and everyone whines about how “easy” it is. I do worry the current climate will force many of our best and brightest to leave though.
I worked at a university – to me, the heart of it was the grad students. Totally immersed in their subjects, willing to sacrifice in order to study it.
On the rare occasion one of these makes it though HR screening, it’s immediately obvious that they are going to do the minimum to get by, and complain if anything beyond what they think their job is is asked of them.
They don’t get hired.
The college board of regents often add to the confusion. “Hobby” positions.
And so the pendulum swings as America “Dumbs Down”.
After all Trump voters have to come from someplace!
While I applaud people going into the trades and learning practical skills, professional skills are critically important.
I took my education far more seriously than most and it has paid incredible dividends. Even though I ended up owning farms and productive real estate assets, the ability to run them as businesses has been a paramount skill…
>>>
The other problem is definitely that students don’t take college seriously at all. You know what value you get from paying 100k to go to a primere college and drink in a frat? Zip. People want the paper alone to do it all for them and that’s not the case.
Why would they? They can go through high school and graduate while learning nothing. Education is a joke now.
Anti-intellectualism has been a thing in this country since the 50s. There was a bit of a break from the 90s to about 2010, but it’s back in full force, along with its traveling companions, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia.
The 21st century belongs to stupid.
i called it the Fonzie affect. being stupid was kewl post ww2. before the war, being stupid was just stupid.
Both I and my husband are college educated, with one of us still paying off the loans. We raised two kids who we’ve stressed the importance of do not go into debt without a future plan to pay it. The first one out of high school wanted to go into the electrical trade immediately. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), so did hundreds of other kids fresh out of high school, so after waiting precious months for the local IBEW to bring her in for training, she switched up to welding. She immediately got into paid for welding classes locally, and will be done in another year. She is highly proficient, ambitious, and could have easily gotten into college. She chose not to start life with an ungodly amount of debt. My other is graduating this coming spring. He is intending to get into a bit of a niche market with an 18 month long education/training period. I think will work out for him, but it’ll have some manageable debt. I’ve no doubt he will succeed on this path as he has a strong interest and lifelong commitment to it.
Congrats. You’re very lucky to have a 20-year-old that has found a “niche market” to which they have a “lifelong commitment”. If everyone was that steadfast and knowledgeable at that young of an age, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Since you seem to know so very much about me and mine, thank you for such an obtuse comment. I’m sure it contributed nothing to this thread.
I’m actually legitimately glad for you and your family if this works out as well as you say and all planned. Generally I don’t wish ill will on any individual.
BUT this is a major issue with people ‘evaluating’ something out of their expertise – like how to produce a college education in a private market system. How can you possibly know if your young adult child will have a “lifelong commitment” to their current path? How many different jobs/careers did and will you have over your lifetime? What is the lifetime career/job turnover for an average American? Have you ever looked up those statistics?
That is one advantage of a college education – general knowledge accrual and society-loving graduation certificate that other businesses want/need. That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, but your “no doubt” for your own child comes from love, and not from a statistical reality of a college education (or not) this blogpost is discussing.
Good story. I am an independent, but according to my liberal friend….people in the U.S. do not want these type of labor or manufacturing jobs and we need to bring in immigrants. Seriously, he thinks U.S. people should be service people and do sales and such.
Ever see a white boy out cutting broccoli?
Regardless of what degree one might get, finishing college indicates the person can finish the job they started, and it also develops curiosity along with the knowledge we don’t know everything. You can always identify a person with no education by the fact that they seem to know everything……
Yes. It also signifies that you’re not a total idiot. Worst case, a partial idiot. Of course there are other ways you can demonstrate intelligence and determination, but employers – and people generally – have neither the time nor the inclination to work to discover someone’s hidden attributes. Life’s too short to not judge a book by its cover.
I suspect that many of those who run down the importance of a degree would admit that they want their kids to get one, even though there are more important things and other things about your kid that you can be proud of and happy about.
Yes. Hiring managers look at a degree as a “shortcut”, when evaluating a candidate.
When someone has one, you can make several assumptions, speeding up the eval.
I was an accountant, but my 3 boys majored in technology and engineering. I figure accounting is susceptible to AI. My youngest is in manufacturing technology (robots and such) I think they all went down a path that is needed in the future vs. replaceable. All the useless degrees have done is replaced high school degrees. Since high schools graduate everyone (without reading or math skills), the hope is a useless degree provides them. However, math is not presumed with the useless degrees either.
No degree is useless. I’ve taught accounting tasks to English & history majors – they’re good listeners, and take instruction well.
I started engineering studies at University of Washington at $115 per quarter. I always had part time employment averaging $1.75 – $2.25 during the school year and summer jobs that paid a little better. That employment paid my tuition and living expenses with very little extra. There is no way to pay for college at or near minimum wage now. One could make a case that an hour of unskilled labor then is equal to an hour of now, but I doubt that the education received now has half the value. Too much federal government interference, particularly in the form of tuition assistance has a lot to do with the discrepancy. The constitution does not grant any form of power over education; therefore, it is a local government function. Deviate from the constitution, suffer the consequences. It is one of those Fool Around Find Out situations.
Just a bit behind you Dave! I started in 1970, $144 per quarter. Got my 2 engineering degrees at UW as well! Loved my time. I could work a summer job and pay tuition, pretty easily. If Schools had skin in the student loan game, and debts were dischargable, this huge academic run up wouldn’t have happened. Got 16 Grandkids now, and it is a chore to think about a full 4 year degree. Some have, some haven’t. Go Dawgs.
There are 4 factors driving this IMHO:
Like most movements, there will be some babies thrown out with the bathwater … but I think it is healthy for people to stop thinking college is the one-size-fits-all answer to human prosperity.
Were the cost of college included in such charts, the only possible conclusion that might be derived from such a poll is that education is not an inelastic good.
What makes it more of an inelastic good is the promise that you can just borrow all the money and pay it back when you get that $150K/year job with the big corner office (which doesn’t work out for 96% of grads). So people convinced that that degree in Benefits of Socialism over an Evil Capitalist society (the general theme of most of the majors) … sign up to put it all on the credit card. Most are convinced that as soon as we get another progressive in the white house, their loans will be “forgiven” (aka xferd to the taxpayers). Universities win big either way and we can expect more and more palatial facilities.
The Late Charlie Kirk wanted the Epstein list released, space Trump should honor him with this.
There are no doubt a lot of fields where a higher degree is extremely important. I really would not want to see a physician with no college degree, or for that matter no medical degree. An LPN is just not the same thing as a surgeon. Same is true for engineers, lawyers, scientists, etc.
I will say that i would never had been successful in my career without my advanced degrees, and my BA as well. But then again i got the BA for $700 per semester back in the 1980s.
In my humble opinion the importance of a BA/BS is not the technical aspects of the degree but rather the overall college “experience” of getting along with different types of people, broadening your mind with philosophy and art classes, and for many of us, having a sort of halfway house to adulthood. That said, paying $100s of thousands for that experience is probably not the best investment of either time or money.
You’re contradicting yourself. The technical aspects of a medical or engineering degree are important to you. And, if you need to pay someone to expand your social circle or your curiosity to learn, your parents failed you.
College is a job certificate. It tells employers you will do work you DONT want to do. I wanted to watch TV in the 1980s, but I was doing papers, studying for tests and doing labs. It is a free indicator to any employer that the person is willing to work and study instead of goofing off. If college fails to do this function, then employers may have to take more risk in hiring or pay more to find good people. Fine with me. You dont learn anything in college. You learn your job on the job.
STATE U grads make great employees at fortune 500. ivy league grads typically go on to grad school for law and medicine and business/government………and become ruling class. life is much more difficult without college in 21st century. plumbers make decent money but spend lives in basements and bathrooms……..college makes for a cushy life. the rest is eyewash.
Mish, you and I started the same year, 1971, My Dad thought I was wasting time, I am sure because he never contribute a dime towards the 95 per quarter tuition paid in SF. I had run away from home anyway, so the support would never be there for me for anything. I also did not expect it.
Ultimately, upon Graduation: I lucked into my first job in the NEW SILICON VALLEY which was about to burst forward in the ensuing years and I did well with my Degrees (Business and Contract Law).
No one would hire me unless I had proof of Graduation. It was a minimum requirement to have a College Degree of some sort.
Presumably Mish knows that a fair portion of his readership are actually educated. Having a college degree and being successful and then telling other people they don’t need one feels a bit like pulling up the ladder behind you.
I kind of always assumed the opposite. Dead Charlie was basically uneducated, so instead he became a true believer, parroting talking points and thinking about very little. We should assume nothing about our opponents.
Screw you. You classless POS.
It’s probably good that only about 35% rate college highly, because that same percentage is in the ballpark for how many jobs actually need a college level education. Where I live the number is somewhat higher than that.
Both my sons are planning on college. There’s nothing wrong with trades or other jobs that involve apprenticing or other forms of training. But if you prefer work that involves a higher ratio of thought to labor, a college degree remains valuable. For example I’m pretty sure the author of this blog went to college.
Also, it’s fun to shit on arts degrees and that kind of stuff, but I think you can truly measure a people by their culture. I studied arts in college and now I own a business in the same field. My wife studied acting and English and now earns over $100k as an English teacher. We’ll retire comfortably without ever doing any manual labor that we did not elect to engage in. I’m excited to go to work every day and my job is creative and fun. I like to do carpentry on the weekends, for fun. I would not want to reverse that. Many of my clients have various jobs that don’t require college degrees, and few of them speak enthusiastically about their work.
Most of us will spend more time at our jobs than anywhere else other than sleeping during our lives. Shouldn’t you enjoy that time if you can? For people who enjoy higher responsibility or intellectual challenge, that often means careers that require a college education. Probably that 30-40% number is accurate nationally. Not everyone enjoys the same kinds of challenges.
Classes, later, in Accounting and advanced Contract Law, prepared me for actual work. I also HAD to take the requisite 101 course work, such as Psyche or Biology and Geology, and those were great classes.
Likewise, I enjoyed some of the required but unrelated classes quite a lot… sociology, 20th century german lit, psychology… all help giving a solid base for understanding human behavior.
Mish went to college and got a computer science degree. He’s self taught in Economics because he found that way more interesting than coding. Essentially his college time was wasted (beyond any study habits he learned that he already didn’t possess).
You might have studied Arts in college but how much of that is relevant in owning your business? I’m fairly sure the ‘running the business’ part of your business was self learned as Mish’s Economics was. You probably could have skipped college entirely (or taken a business major) and started and run your business.
Definitely everyone should be happy in their work or else it becomes more of a dreaded chore you do daily. But the idea you need college to have a fulfilling job/career is crazy. You just need to find what you like to do (the younger the better) and get busy doing it.
It’s 100% related to owning my business. That’s the field I’m in and I’m an owner/operator although titles get tricky or meaningless in the arts. But my work is creative and hinges on many of the things I learned in college. Furthermore my job requires a lot of close interpersonal interaction and collaboration with people from all walks of life, for which a broad life experience including college is super helpful. Of course I learned other things myself- the things that a college education wouldn’t be needed for.
As you point out, the actual business owning part is hardly something anyone would need a degree for. Any independent contractor does the same. Even much of the technical aspect of my work is self taught or learned through previous mentor-apprentice type work situations. But the college education gives me an enormous competitive edge over anyone else who wants to do my job. It allows me to attract the best clients who are similarly educated and expect the people assisting them to be professionally literate. Really I’m playing on a completely different level than people without that education.
Many people without college educations don’t know what a college education is good for, because they don’t have call to apply those kinds of skills in their day to day. Rumsfeld called these “unknown unknowns.”
I thought his degree was civil engineering.
Most people will be unemployed in 20 years or less as AI/automation/robots take on all human jobs and work.
I take this attitude the same way I remember the “Peak Oil” mania, which I embarrassingly admit to having fallen for. I believe it comes from the same deep dark place- a wish for the world to break so badly that we’re not responsible for our own situations any longer.
Reality is reality. You can run but you can’t hide.
> What exactly is one supposed to do with a degree in
> English literature, psychology, art, religion, or dozens of other
> nearly worthless options?
They can be used to teach students to think about people, society, philosophy, war, propaganda, justice, life. My engineering degree did not. As I learned the past decades reading blogs, I wish I had taken more courses in these subjects to better prepare me for the clown shows to come.
Do I think the schools succeeded in this pursuit? Not enough. Not for the prices they charge, prices based on financiers loading schools with admin staff to jack up the revenue they skim.
What a shit show.
From everything I’ve ever read on this blog, I’ve never seen Mish ever say anything interesting about the arts, culture, or literature. He’s a numbers guy, and I do respect that he enjoys the great outdoors and amateur photography. He’s just not someone who thinks about the value of finer things that don’t have a price tag. And in his defense, many kids do indeed pursue degrees that they are not suited for. I see this a lot in my line of work- too many kids chasing too few jobs in the creative fields, who don’t really have what it takes to make it. The colleges do share blame for this.
It’s tough to ask an 18 year old to make a choice that will affect the rest of their lives.
If our whole society wasn’t wired into the standard career progression pyramid, kids might be able to wait until their early 20’s to make a decision about a future career path and related studies.
That’s part of why a more traditional general BA program is actually worthwhile. General skills and experiences better prepare young people to make wise decisions about their own futures. But we have lost the value of broad classical education in the US, and I think our culture and economy are suffering as a result.
You don’t need a degree to learn/think about “people, society, philosophy, war, propaganda, justice, life”.
Most of these things are just acquired from actually living (ie age/wisdom, meeting people, reading books for pleasure etc). If one becomes really interested in one these topics beyond what they get from ‘living’ then sure, attend a lecture / speaking engagement at a local college (often for free, join a like minded club/society or even website.
But to spend 50-100K over 4 years at ages 17-21 and then expect to get an actual ‘job’ in these fields that pays good enough money to justify those 4 years of time + expenses is insane.
Hmm being around a lot of like-minded people who are learning those same things, with enthusiasm, from experts in those fields, is maybe different than trying to gain that knowledge on your own, surrounded by people who don’t really care too much about anything except what’s on TV, etc. And then there’s the whole issue of, without experts and tutelage, how do you even know what’s connected, where to look for meaning, how it fits together, etc? Simply watching Youtube videos and reading isn’t the same as formal education. Not saying it can’t be done, just saying, the fact that it can be done doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it.
The problem is, the professors teaching the classes you mention, are the clown show
Professors will teach that people come in multiple genders, society is better trusted to the government, philosophy is nihil, war is peace, justice is race, life can be terminated at will.
If you needed to pay to be taught about people, society, philosophy, war, propaganda, justice, life, then your parents failed you or you were a misanthrope.
People are now making the foolish decision of “doing their own research” and being led like lambs to the slaughter.
Do not mistake the value of your course in basket weaving, middle English, modern literature or pricing theory in the same league as advanced structural theory, dynamics under a strict advisor, or the biology and anatomy in a medical program.
today “all knowledge is at my fingers, but I know know nothing works, so college is crap becuz I like the way AI writes my emails”
Absolutely do your own research.
When I ask an LLM any politically sensitive question, it tells me the establishment’s conspiracy theories. Those make less sense than what I imagine I’d hear from that infamous corner of Hyde Park. (Presuming that’s still a thing.)
After I press the LLM with information I learned in some corner of the internet, it thanks me for calling out its neglect in sharing and considering that other information.
Spend your life “doing your own research” or let others make your opinions for you.
“Doing your own thinking” had Americans taking horse deworming pills from the tractor supply store to fight coronavirus.
There’s value in being widely read no doubt… interestingly enough, a good college education teaches you how to learn for yourself. This includes the wishy-washy BA studies.
> horse deworming pills
OMG. Dude.
You will find few college educated people who believed horse dewormer would cure covid. One of the things most college students are exposed to are research papers and how to read them.
Asking people who never learned to do research, to do their own research, is a recipe for disaster. And thus anti vax,pizzagate, and a million other dumb ideas that become popular among the do your own research without knowing how to research crowd
Does ivermectin have a place in the treatment of mild Covid-19?
Comparing molnupiravir to ivermectin in preventing hospitalization [Table 1], we see that based on existing data the performance of ivermectin is similar to molnupiravir [which is approved by FDA for emergency treatment].
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9135450/
> You will find few college educated people who
> believed horse dewormer would cure covid.
Ironic claim, in the context of this article.
> anti vax
Oy. Using that establishment meme means you didn’t and don’t understand the arguments opposing unsafe products.
“ do your own research” means find some whack job that is saying things that make you feel special and important.
You’ll also find college-educated people who knew that the government-mandated vaccines conferred no additional protection to those who’d already recovered from Covid. One was Rachel Walensky. You may remember her. She was head of the CDC under Biden. She admitted that fact during Senate testimony in September 2021, and also admitted that the main reason they were mandating vaccination even for those who’d already recovered from Covid was that it was easier on them administratively.
Presumably college-educated people were the ones who determined that the infection fatality rate of Covid for people under age 35 was .004% – and far lower for children, of whom more died of the flu than from Covid, with the majority of those few children who died from Covid immunocompromised due to chemo treatment for leukemia.
College-educated people (mainly in Denmark which is relatively free of pharma influence) have demonstrated that continued covid vaccination (starting with #4) upregulates IgG4, reducing immune response and increasing susceptibility not only to Covid, but to other diseases, including cancers.
Lastly, college-educated media stenographers for pharma made sure that the facts above remained largely unknown.
A degree can’t guarantee wisdom, honor or credibility.
Since the clown posse seems to value AI and discredited studies, let’s see what AI has to say about Ivermectin and covid:
“Several large studies have investigated the use of ivermectin for COVID-19, but most have found little to no benefit. Notably, a randomized controlled trial involving over 8,800 participants indicated that ivermectin did not significantly improve recovery rates compared to standard care, and other studies have similarly concluded that it does not effectively treat mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms.”
Oh, OK. What about the vaccines?
“The largest studies on COVID-19 vaccines include a significant analysis involving over 99 million people, which assessed various health conditions related to vaccine safety. This study confirmed rare side effects like myocarditis from mRNA vaccines while also highlighting the overall benefits of vaccination in preventing severe illness and hospitalizations
Findings:
Should he have said a horse paste? Do you prefer the Apple flavor?
How about Remdesivir and a vent …. to go?
Apple flavor was good. Worked for me! I’m still one of the few pure bloods who never took the Covid shots (they are NOT vaccines).
Why not just have “Dumbass” tattooed on your forehead? It keeps viruses away you know.
Then people would think we were twins.
Me too!
Lol. You would have a tough time in the trades. Learning to read is an important skill that apparently passed you by as well. No worries, enjoy Whoopie and the girls! https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8383101/
Did you get all your ouchies for Dr Fauci?
Yeah I did, my wife did, my kids did, my parents did, my wife’s parents did, my living grandparent did, my friends did, their parents did, my friends kids did, etc etc. Everyone I know personally did, yet the only people I know of who died from Covid (both of a friend’s parents who were antivaxx kooks, and an old classmate who was exposed early on and didn’t have the benefit of choice), didn’t. I don’t know anyone who had trouble with the Covid vaccine besides the usual complains of aches and tiredness.
But that doesn’t mean much. What really means a lot are the large studies and statistics, which are conclusive. The vaccines worked great. It’s the best thing Trump managed to do in his first term, although some may argue it happened in spite of his incompetence.
The replies I got are exactly perfect examples of “do your own research” doesn’t work when the people doing it are insufficiently educated to even understand what that means or the value in the information and research they rely on. I have people linking discredited papers or papers with tiny samples from 2021 when we have tons of high quality and high sample size papers available over the period since then. Science moves on, but quackery is frozen in time forever.
You do know that there are multiple LLM AI’s, yes? When you diss on something it would be helpful to specify which AI you are referring to. And don’t tell me “all of them” because then I’ll have to call you a liar.
They all rely on the same technology and are all prone to the same kinds of problems like hallucinations etc. Also they will all tell you that Covid 19 vaccines work and Ivermectin doesn’t.
Perceived importance of choosing the right parents rises dramatically.
Same for country club memberships.
Same for white shoe wardrobe.
Just don’t wear white shoes after Labor Day, Lisa.
(I learned this from “Serial Mom”.)
I suppose I should put my straw boater away too?
This is one very warm September. 😉
The only purpose of college for the last two decades was to have that piece of paper that you graduated from somewhere. The easiest way to discriminate against people, “Sorry this position/promotion requires a college degree…no job/promotion for you!”
I felt college was a huge waste of time, most of the stuff I needed to learn for my career I ended up learning on my own. The “degree” and the monopoly of knowledge was what kept the system as status quo. The “degree” requirement still seems to exist for many jobs.
There are so many online options to learn practically anything now. There are YouTube channels for just about any profession now. Unless you need a license: Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, etc. college is not necessary for most.
And with AI seemingly knowing all of human knowledge, we do need to think about the entire purpose of higher education. Perhaps we all need to learn to be AI “auditors” to make sure it’s not hallucinating or making mistakes.
I also think that Employers back in 1976 when I graduated were looking for those with degrees because even then: Attending College was hard with part time jobs, and my car breaking down and living with a nutcase Blond who was demanding. The best Education was that I learned that with WHOM you mate makes a huge difference and I later Married well and only once. She is a gem.
Agreed.
Yes cure yourself from Youtube videos./s
The things you can learn from youtube videos are the same skills you don’t need college for. With the help of Youtube, I remodeled my entire ground floor including a kitchen and bathroom with custom cabinetry from scratch, electrical work, plumbing, new hardwood floors, etc and I still go to a doctor when I have a health concern. Often their findings are quite different than what my Youtube sleuthing has me thinking before the visit.
If college was a waste of time for you, perhaps you were studying the wrong thing! Mish points out that for many, college is indeed a waste of time. But thinking you can practice medicine from youtube, shows a lack of the kind of critical thinking that a good college education should instill!
Where did he say you could practice medicine from YouTube?
He specifically said only licensed jobs (Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers) really needed actual degrees. Most other things can be self learned as you yourself have done.
This is why they hate college so much.
I have relatives who consider themselves to have the equivalent of a minor in medicine from watching videos online…
My new doctor is Mr. AI. Very patient! Never rushes me out of the office. Answers all my questions and points me to various resources that I can refer to after the consult.
Allergies –> self lobotomy