College is almost never worth the investment, especially when you combine the opportunity cost. You pay a lot of money, go into death and lose 4-5 of your useful years, hard to ever make that up. They used to say someone with a bachelor's made 1 million more over their life..bs stat since they are comparing apples and oranges, i.e. smarter people go to college. Need to compare Apples to apples.
HOWEVER...the problem is now a bachelor's is a requirement for so many professional jobs.
1. If you are rich, you should go to college and enjoy, you'll be fine.
2. If you are middle class, get a scholarship or go on the cheap (go to community college, then to public uni). Work while going and save money.
3. If you poor or even middle class, the military is a great option. Score well on the ASVAB, chart your military path well and flourish.
4. The trades are great. Learn while doing, if you flourish, you can start a business, employ fellow tradesman. They can't take your plumber/electrician job to mexico/india and can't bring an illegal or h1b here to do it.
Bottom line. Like every other aspect of our society, our culture sells lifestyles and lifepaths to people regardless of class, when income disparity is great than ever. By following the 'correct path' the middle and working class saddle themselves with lifetime of debt and wonder where things went wrong.
So, no easy answers. Degrees are scams...BUT...you need a degree. Smart people of moderate means used to be able to avoid college and take what were essentially IQ test for jobs, get a good job and flourish, but those are illegal (disparate impact, Griggs vs Duke Power).
So at some point there needs to be created an affordable, doable life plan for 'normal americans' that allows them to flourish and not turn into debt serfs, but there's not a lot of money in creating that system, so who knows.
But if you just look at this as a ROI issue, devoid of status, etc, the answer gets clearer.
