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Kids are ditching traditional college for career tech programs. Parents are concerned.
(www.usatoday.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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The value of a degree doesn't drop because more people get one, if that were the case there'd be little value in finishing high school. If everyone else has a college degree and you don't, then you are at a disadvantage.
The value of a college degree will decrease as the cost of a college education goes up, the knowledge gained from a college education is available elsewhere, and fewer people see a reason to get a college degree.
It absolutely does. Part of the reason lawyer pay collapsed was because of the proliferation of law colleges that increased lawyer supply.
It happened to be that there was an increase in demand for college degrees in the later 20th century which countered supply, but the labor premium of having a college degree over a trade certification has dropped significantly over the past generation.
A lot of millennials went to college and chose specific degrees due to the promise of a higher wage. That wage difference isn't there anymore.
The value of specific degrees may be diluted, however the value of a college degree in general does not - at least from the perspective of being able to land a job. If 75% of the applicants for a job have a college degree, the 25% are going to find it difficult to get a first interview.
Even if they do get the interview it is still an uphill battle. I just hired someone on my team who doesn't have a college degree. He was by far more qualified than anyone else I spoke with because he had 20 years experience. I hadn't even noticed that he didn't have a college degree until I got a call from HR asking me to justify hiring someone without a college degree for this position, and me just saying 'He has 20 years experience' wasn't good enough justification.
You're right, compared to a career from a trade school versus a career from a college degree there isn't much difference, but having a college degree can still give an edge over someone without a degree in getting a job.
I can see that having a college degree may be a benefit at getting a job at your company, but would you recommend that people go to college to work at your company? Based on your numbers, a college degree only turns a 1 out of 4 chance to a 1 out of 3 chance of getting a job.
The company I work for is a huge medical equipment manufacturer, practically everyone in my building are either scientists, R&D or manufacturing process management and those positions all require specific degrees.
I work in IT, and they want the people leaders at least to have degrees. The position I was hiring for was a people leader, but I didn't feel a degree was necessary. That said, if someone starting out on IT asked me if they should get a degree I would tell them that they should work in IT for a few years to see if they like it, and if they want to advance in IT then they will have a much easier time advancing with a degree. Depending how high they want to go they might even need a Masters.
But if people are choosing to go into a trade, are they choosing IT as that trade?
When I hear people talking about going to trade school over college, I expect them to go into technical fields where their trade certifications are enough to get by on.