> If my kids have a 1/3 chance of interacting with someone that doesn’t think college is worth it,
Many people believe college is not worth it for everyone, but believe a college degree is important for the job they’re hiring for.
This statistic also includes people who think college is too expensive for what it delivers, but that the value of a college degree is still nonzero.
There is yet another level of people who are frustrated with how academically weak and unchallenging common colleges have become, or how many students are going to 4-year degree programs to study topics with no job applicability. The answers would change completely if you asked people if a history degree from a $60K per year private college was worth it, compared to a Computer Science degree from Stanford. The question “is college worth it” is too generic to mean anything now that it could mean anything from a $200K piece of paper without real job skills, or a golden ticket into the recruiting funnel at FAANG.
This creates the discrepancy between polls like this and actual revealed hiring preferences. Many will tell you they don’t think college is worth it but will prefer applicants will college degrees.
Many people believe college is not worth it for everyone, but believe a college degree is important for the job they’re hiring for.
This statistic also includes people who think college is too expensive for what it delivers, but that the value of a college degree is still nonzero.
There is yet another level of people who are frustrated with how academically weak and unchallenging common colleges have become, or how many students are going to 4-year degree programs to study topics with no job applicability. The answers would change completely if you asked people if a history degree from a $60K per year private college was worth it, compared to a Computer Science degree from Stanford. The question “is college worth it” is too generic to mean anything now that it could mean anything from a $200K piece of paper without real job skills, or a golden ticket into the recruiting funnel at FAANG.
This creates the discrepancy between polls like this and actual revealed hiring preferences. Many will tell you they don’t think college is worth it but will prefer applicants will college degrees.