The College Devaluation Crisis

For more than seven decades, the college degree offered an entrée to middle-class life.

Before World War II, a university education primarily provided religious training for wealthy white men. As the economy shifted from the factories and physical work of the Industrial Age toward the offices and cognitive work of the Knowledge Era, however, the college degree gained wider relevance and importance. Employers came to view achievement of a four-year degree as evidence of an ability to persevere through a rigorous selection process, heavy workloads and test performance. 

College students paid significant sums for tuition and books, and sacrificed earnings to pursue their education, but their investments generally paid off. They received the so-called “good jobs” that paved their path to middle-class prosperity and job security. Indeed, even when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, college graduates suffered far fewer job losses; most simply switched from working in offices to working from home. Yet by the time COVID-19 struck, a dramatic shift in the value of a college degree was already underway.

As far back as 2015, polls suggested that US employers...