By Ryan Boyle

Language is a living construct. New words are continually added, older words fall out of general usage, and some words change their meanings along the way. On the latter front, some of my younger colleagues use "adult" as a verb. Responsible, necessary but dull activities like paying bills and repairing our homes qualify as adulting.

Every June, hundreds of thousands of university graduates make the transition from studying to adulting. Most will now need to focus on finding steady work, living independently and budgeting, with student loan payments occupying a large portion of newly-formed household budgets. As the bills pile up on those young adults, they may be left pondering a difficult question: was my degree worth pursuing?

Not long ago, the question would have sounded absurd. For nearly as along as the data have been tracked, degree holders could expect better employment prospects, higher wages and an all-around higher quality of life for themselves and their future children. Getting a degree was well worth the delayed entry to the working world. 

Today, bachelor's degrees are coming at a high cost. The lowest yearly expenses - at public universities for in-state students - now average $20,000.  Elite private institutions are approaching $100,000 per year. In practice, scholarships help many students avoid paying sticker prices, but very few get a full ride. As a result, the average graduate in 2023 started their earning years with debt of $33,500.

Not every enrollment ends with a diploma. Whether the student faced health troubles or simply wasn't ready, an estimated 25% of first-time bachelor's degree seekers leave without finishing a degree. Those students are left with the worst possible outcome: educational debt, no credentials and years of foregone wages and on-the-job experience. Those students are most likely to end up in default, and may be left living with impaired credit scores.

These outcomes have introduced an element of risk to the decision to attend college. More students are deterred by the downside risks of a decision that may feel like a gamble.

Students contemplating college should also consider the risk of their jobs being automated. For a long time, this was a worry limited to workers in factories or other hands-on occupations: machines could do many manual tasks faster and more reliably than a human could. But the gains from automating physical tasks have largely been made. The new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) will compete with the knowledge work that was once considered safe.

AI is in its early stages, but moving quickly. About a fifth of workers may see their jobs disrupted, particularly in specialties like accounting, technical writing and programming.  Most workers in these fields believe that AI carries more promise to make them more productive than replace them—but that productivity may be achieved by automating the rote work typically assigned to entry-level roles.  Gaining an early-career foothold will become more difficult.

The competitive dynamic is already playing out. College enrollment as a share of the adult population in the U.S. peaked around 2010. Smaller universities with more limited curriculum offerings are closing. The decades-long runup of tuition has recently leveled off.

Employers were part of the reason for the push into college, and they are increasingly loosening their requirements for jobs that may not demand degrees. In technical professions like engineering and medicine, undergraduate coursework is highly relevant training for the work ahead. But the degree requirement crept into all roles, meant as a filter to select candidates who could complete assignments and communicate effectively. That is an expensive proxy, and the requirement excludes roughly half the labor force, adding to inequality.

Organized efforts like recruiting candidates who are "skilled through alternative routes," or STARs, are underway. In the looser labor market following the global financial crisis, researchers found 75% of jobs created required a degree, often for roles that were performed by incumbents without degrees. The tight labor market following the pandemic accelerated a more critical look at the actual skills required for a role.  Recruiters are now focusing more on applicants’ skills than their pedigrees (and may use AI to help sort these additional details.)

Students considering college will have alternatives. Those who are unsure if college is right for them can explore a host of other options. Many in-demand jobs of the future will be hands-on roles like working the production lines of semiconductor fabricators or installing and maintaining a more complex electrical grid; skilled labor, but not requiring college. 

Building and manufacturing trades are facing a retirement wave of skilled old hands. Inflation has been very high in this cycle in the category of motor vehicle maintenance, due to an ongoing shortage of trained auto mechanics. Well-paying, in-demand trades like plumbing, heating and cooling and electric work are persistently hiring, often filled by immigrants. New joiners in these fields can look forward to paid, on-the-job training, avoiding the burden of student loans.

There are many paths to success; we on our team have put our degrees to great use. Higher education will unlock a beneficial future of upward mobility for most students. But those who choose other paths can also be rewarded. Clear thinking and planning can put more young people on a path toward successful adulting.