Thinking about a college degree

I grew up in Oak Ridge Tennessee in the ‘60s. At the time, it was a town with one of the highest concentrations of scientists and engineers in the nation. Both of my parents were college grads. So, I took it for granted that most Americans graduated from college. I didn’t know until I was in college that in 1977 (the year I graduated), approximately 15% of American adults aged 25 and older were graduates of four-year colleges or universities. 

Today, that number is nearly 40%. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that a bachelor’s degree from a 4-year college or university isn’t the meal ticket it once was.

“The unemployment gap between workers with bachelor’s degrees and those with occupational associate’s degrees - such as plumbers, electricians and pipe fitters - flipped in 2025, leaving trade workers with a slight edge for six months out of the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the first time trade workers have had a leg up since the BLS started tracking this data in the 1990s.

 

“This shift coincides with a broad reassessment of what the best career paths are in today’s labor market, which economists have called one of the most vexing in generations - especially for entry-level applicants. The soaring costs of a four-year degree, combined with an uncertain outlook amid the rise of AI, are prompting young people to consider alternative routes to economic prosperity. Community colleges and blue-collar employers are trying to harness the rising interest in skilled trades, amping up recruiting efforts aimed at young people.”

Now let’s be clear: the unemployment rate overall for college grads is still lower that for those who don’t have a 4-year degree. 

“Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher had a 2.8 percent unemployment rate in December, compared with 4 percent for high school graduates and 3.8 percent for those with some college or an associate’s degree.”

What’s more, this ahistoric inversion may not be sustainable.

“Jeff Strohl, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, cast the shifts as a “historic anomaly.”

 

“The question becomes, are we talking about a structural break? Is this in any way indicative of what the world is going to look like in two or three years?” Strohl said.

 

“His research suggests not. The center’s “Future of Good Jobs” report predicts that “economic opportunity will increasingly favor workers with higher levels of education and training” in the next five years. It puts the median pay of a “good job” at $82,000.

 

“By 2031, only 15 percent of good jobs will be available to workers on the high school pathway, the report says, compared with 66 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree and 19 percent for those who have more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree.”

To be sure, your major, your grades, your university and your recommendations can make a big difference. But simply having the degree give an edge. It marks you as a “finisher.” To complete a bachelor’s degree, you have to sustain a record of completing work in diverse courses on time and at standard. These alone are qualities that employers seek. Not that a high school grad can’t possess those qualities, but the diploma reduces the risk, and the price of testing those aptitudes was borne by someone else.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/31/business/college-education-employment-prospect/