Comment by pigpop

Doesn't the graph make this easy to interpret? College used to not be seen as necessary by the majority of people and so only those with a strong aptitude or desire to pursue higher education did so. It became a metric to use during hiring because a degree accurately indicated that the person holding it had high aptitude or a strong interest in the field and the competency to obtain a degree. People observed this and tried to game the system by acquiring any degree to pad their resume (the motivation changed from real aptitude and interest to simply getting a higher paying job). This worked for a time while there was still an overhang in the perception of a degree but eventually the sheer volume of people with degrees made it evident that it was no longer an accurate measure. The value of a bachelor's degree in any field plummeted and was replaced by other measures (a masters, multiple degrees, PhD, exclusive schools) which were also gamed by applicants. Now the jig is up and we're in a situation where the measure is whether your family has enough money and connections to get you a laundry list of qualifications or you rely on contacts or demonstrated talent to get the higher paying jobs. The widespread discounting of the importance of higher education is a good thing, it means that people are realizing that it is no longer an exploitable measure and will hopefully lead to a correction in both the number of people getting degrees and the cost of pursuing a degree. The unfortunate part is that we're in an interim period where costs are high and there are still a lot of employers that see a degree as a box that needs to be checked.