Why Degrees Are Less Valuable Today: What Parents Should Know About Higher Education And Youth Unemployment
Last Saturday, my 22-year-old nephew Liam dragged a box of his college things into my garage after moving back home post-graduation. We ordered pepperoni pizza, ate off paper plates at my kitchen table, and I leaned over to see what he was scrolling on his phone: LinkedIn, 17 open entry-level marketing jobs, all saved. He took a bite of pizza and said, “This one pays $31,000 a year. I make $35 an hour plus tips bartending at the brew pub near campus. I took out $38,000 in student loans for my communications degree, and the job the degree’s supposed to get me pays less than pouring beer.”
A week before that, I stood at the neighborhood bus stop with my neighbor Sarah, whose daughter is a high school senior. Sarah said her daughter told her she doesn’t see the point of applying to college. “All her older friends graduated last year, three of them have degrees, and all three are still working the same retail jobs they had in college. She says it’s just throwing money away.”
That line stuck with me. Thirty years ago, when I was applying to college, my dad told me any degree was better than no degree. Back then, only about a third of high school grads went on to get a bachelor’s, so the degree worked as a simple filter for employers: if you had one, you were more likely to be reliable, motivated, and have basic literacy and numeracy skills. Now, more than 37% of young adults have a bachelor’s, so that filter doesn’t work anymore. Everyone has the piece of paper, so it doesn’t set anyone apart. On top of that, most four-year programs haven’t adjusted to what employers actually need right now. Liam learned how to write a 20-page research paper on media theory, but he never learned how to run a Meta ad campaign or edit a short social media video, which is what every entry-level marketing job asks for these days.
I don’t think this means no one should go to college. But it does mean we as parents need to stop defaulting to the old one-size-fits-all path, and do a few small, concrete things instead that fit the current job market.
First, make your kid do at least two 1-week job shadows before they pick a major or send in any college applications. It doesn’t have to be fancy. If your kid says they like psychology, email a local social work office and ask if they can sit in for a few afternoons. If they like marketing, ask a local small business owner if they can tag along for a week. Liam never did this. He picked communications because it sounded interesting and flexible, and he never talked to anyone who actually worked in entry-level comms to find out what the pay and daily work actually looked like. This step takes almost no effort, and it can save your kid from paying tens of thousands of dollars for a career they don’t actually want or that won’t pay their bills.
Second, if they do go for a four-year degree, have them stack one low-cost, industry-recognized certificate alongside their degree. Google’s digital marketing certificate costs $49 a month and takes less than six months to finish. A phlebotomy certification for pre-med students takes a few weeks and lets them earn good money while finishing school, and looks better on a resume than just a biology degree. These don’t just look good on paper — they prove to employers you have a skill they can use on day one, which is way more valuable than a general degree alone. When I helped Liam redo his resume last week, we added the free Google digital marketing certificate he knocked out in three weeks while he was applying for jobs, and he got his first interview three days later.
Third, normalize working or doing a 2-year trade program before committing to a four-year degree. A kid I went to church with graduated high school three years ago, didn’t want to go into debt, so he did a 16-month HVAC program at the local community college. He’s 22 now, makes $72,000 a year, has no debt, and already has a company truck. That’s more than a lot of four-year grads make five years out of school. It’s okay if the path isn’t four years straight out of high school. Many kids don’t know what they want to do at 18, and working for a year or two to figure it out saves more money than wasting two years of tuition on a major they drop.
We don’t have all the answers yet. The old contract between higher education and stable work is broken, and there’s no neat new rule to replace it. Liam still might not get that job, and Sarah’s daughter might end up going to college and loving it, or she might not. What I know for sure is that pretending the old rules still work doesn’t do our kids any favors. We don’t have to have it all figured out, we just have to stop pushing them down a path that was built for a different time, and help them build actual skills that fit the world they’re actually going to work in.
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