In 1970, only half of Americans graduated from high school, less than 10 percent went to college. When you were 15 or 16, you went out and got a job. Those who DID go to college were guaranteed a good career, because they were overwhelmingly doctors, accountants, lawyers, and architects. Parents saw that, and told their kids that the key to a great job was going to college. It was good advice, except too many people followed it.
The government, being run by those same parents and their peers, approved a plan to give out student loans and grants so all of those people could go to college. This greatly increased demand and money chasing those college educations. Everyone wanted to have a high paying college job because they considered physical labor to be for people who weren’t smart enough to go to college. We’ve all heard the insults- if you don’t have a college degree or if you joined the military, it’s because you are stupid.
Colleges attempted to meet demand by adding all sorts of degree programs. The government soon passed rules requiring a college degree, any college degree, in order to get a job. You couldn’t get a job sweeping the floors of the courthouse without a 4 year degree. Tuition began to rise- much faster than inflation. By the time of the turn of the 21st century, the cost of a semester’s tuition was up from $400 in 1970 to over $3,500, an increase of 11.2% per year- more than 3 times the official rate of inflation. During the same period of time, $400 in gold increased to $2,600 worth of gold. By 2000, it cost more than $55,000 to get a 4 year degree by the time room and board was factored in. The demand and profit in college became so great that colleges began opening in strip malls.
In the Orlando area alone, there are more than 40 colleges and 500,000 college students. Of course, most of them won’t graduate. That’s actually good news because there can’t possibly be enough jobs to handle 100,000 college graduates a year in a town of only 3 million. Even so, more than 25,000 people a year graduate with bachelor’s degrees each year, and another 16,000 with associates degrees.
So by the year 2000, people were earning degrees in things like Outdoor Recreation, or Medieval and Renaissance French Poetry. (Yes, I actually have met people with degrees in these majors) There being no demand for those jobs, the people who took out those huge loans were now having to pay $550 a month for a degree that didn’t get them a job paying nearly enough to do that. So that’s how we got here:
This woman thinks she is better than the cashiers at Target. A minimum wage job is beneath her. You can see the attitude. She thinks her bachelor’s degree- whatever it happens to be in- guarantees her a job because she is smarter than those uneducated morons who didn’t go to college.
The college majors with the highest unemployment are:
- Anthropology
- Computer Engineering
- Fine Arts
- Performing Arts
- Computer Science
- Architecture
- Art History
- Physics
- Early Childhood Education
- Environmental Studies
Note that 3 of the 10 most unemployable majors are in the arts. Art and expression aren’t things you can learn from a book for the most part. Sure, there are some things you can learn like music, but there aren’t nearly enough jobs in that field to keep up with new graduates.
Computer science and engineering are in that list because the technology of computers is changing so rapidly that the things you learn in college are obsolete before you even graduate. The professor teaching your course is likely passing on obsolete knowledge using outdated textbooks, and granting you degree certifying you are well versed in yesterday’s technology.
Physics and education are there for teachers. Those fields, even for those who CAN get a job in them, don’t pay enough to justify those loan payments.
The best degrees for employment are the same as they were in 1970: medicine, law, and civil engineering. The only problem is a medical degree now costs half a million dollars and twelve years of your time. College needs to be trimmed down and made cheaper. For most people, college is simply a bad investment, especially in a useless major. However, picking a good major won’t help if you can’t understand or master the material.
Two year colleges have a 43% graduation rate. Four year colleges are better at 71%, but how many of them are graduating with useless degrees? Of 2018’s entry class, 77% of Asian students, 73% of white students, 52% of Hispanic students, and 45% of black students graduated. Black student enrollment at elite U.S. colleges has declined significantly following the 2023 Supreme Court ban on affirmative action, with some institutions seeing nearly a 50% drop in new black students.
Factoring in the useless majors and dropout rates, perhaps only 20% of those who go to college will actually gain real benefit from them.
Colleges like Yale and Harvard report graduation rates in the 98% range, but I can’t help but wonder if that is due to students being passed along whether they learn anything or not.
I got a nursing degree. Half of the people trying to get into nursing couldn’t even finish the prerequisites. Half of those who entered the two year nursing program didn’t finish by getting their RN license. So we are talking 25% of those who tried to become nurses actually made it. Of those who DO make it, unemployment rates are under 1.5%, indicating a shortage of nurses.
Firefighting was about the same. There were 25 people in my fire academy class. There was a waiting list to get in. 80% of those who began the class went on to be licensed firefighters. It was still difficult to get a job, though. When my department had an opening, we generally had more than 200 applicants for every job opening. A third of those who became licensed never got hired. About a third of them left the profession within 5 years. It’s a tough job with a high attrition rate. About a third of them wound up rising to the ranks to retirement , and couple of them became chiefs. All of them I have spoken with have retired or left firefighting.
20 Comments
Don in Oregon · May 13, 2026 at 9:48 am
Here’s an excellent analysis from 2011 on how to cut the high cost of college:
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Opportunities-for-Efficiency-and-Innovation-Fried-FINAL.pdf
Rick · May 13, 2026 at 11:03 am
The true cost of ‘free’ money.
Fedgov low interest student loans with very amenable terms. In response, tuition rocketed to the stratosphere.
Rick · May 13, 2026 at 10:56 am
Employers increasingly require college degrees.
(My wife, 30 years experience in her field, was denied promotion because she did not have a 4 year degree after her employer reshuffled the job titles and pay scales. In fact, her duties and pay was reduced.)
This created a mad rush to get a 4 yr degree.
Then fedgov started to finance student loans. Employer demand plus the flood of easy money, prompted colleges to create a great number of silly degreed programs.
Truly, underwater basketweaving had arrived
Modern Day Jeremiah · May 13, 2026 at 1:04 pm
This was an unintended but foreseeable consequence of the SCOTUS ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power which severely restricted the use of aptitude tests in employment decisions because of “disparate impacts” against the melanin rich. Employers began using college degrees as a proxy. That may have made sense 50 years ago. Today, not so much.
TRX · May 13, 2026 at 11:07 am
> Everyone wanted to have a high paying college job because they considered physical labor to be for people who weren’t smart enough to go to college.
—
In the 1970s in various schools in the People’s Democratic Republic of California *and* several southern states, we were *taught* that, and then underwent at least two “career counseling” sessions per year to reinforce that.
By my junior year in high school, they were dismissive of any white-collar jobs that involved ‘work’; it was all about what kind of *manager* you wanted to be. Anything less than a management position was the same as picking cotton or driving a taxi.
I saw how this panned out when I when I had to review employment applications in the real world. ~75% of the people with no or minimal experience expected to start in a management position, ~15% in a senior developer or sebior tech position, and the ones with realistic goals mostly had no qualifications whatsoever.
A friend’s daughter works in fast food. She’s a manager. *Everyone* is a manager if they can bother to come to work for eight weeks. If their employee pool demands to be “managers”, they give them the title and they still punch the time clock.
Al · May 13, 2026 at 11:36 am
I agree with just about everything you said, but I would also add that the H1B visa program is also a significant reason for unemployment in the computer field. I retired a few years back and just about every place that I worked at in recent years was filled with H1B workers. The things that they were doing were nothing that couldn’t have been done by an American worker but Americans never got a chance. It’s disgraceful.
WallPhone · May 13, 2026 at 3:31 pm
Agreed. Somewhere between a third to half the workforce has been imported, and the same amount “outsourced” overseas where they invest 80% more man hours to accomplish 20% of the work.
You never seen to be able to communicate to the person doing the work, it’s always a game of telephone with a clueless higher-caste manager between you and the engineer.
Ole Grump · May 13, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Yet if you have the smarts and drive, certain degrees pay very well, send you to places for adventure and riches. A gal of my acquaintance received a petroleum engineer degree. Graduated one day, celebrated with her family that evening and was on a jet the next morning headed to the North Sea and a British Petroleum oil platform. Highest pay for that graduation class.
One of the worst problems that people have in obtaining high paying jobs is their reluctance of leaving mommy and getting out of their comfortable nest. One of my extended family was complaining about not being able to finding work that meet his monetary needs. I told him I could get him hired with a solid company, paying nearly twice his present salary, the company would train him and give him all the overtime he could handle. His reply was “Why would I want to leave Ohio”.
I think that a good majority of us would opt to be slaves if they were offered the bed and bread and freedom from making any decision thereafter.
Grumpy51 · May 14, 2026 at 8:34 am
^^^^^THIS!!
The pay for NP/PA has headed south in the DFW area. Why?? Over-saturation. There are at least 3 NP schools, 2 PA schools, and 2 med schools in the area, not to mention the “internet” programs. I hear new grads bemoan the fact of not being able to find a job making more than what they were as a RN.
Well, for one (for NPs) – you went straight through without doing the 5 years bedside nursing first, so you really don’t have ANY experience. For two – there are plenty of jobs, outside the area, but “I don’t want to move.” NOT my problem. As my grandparents (Depression era) would say – quit complaining, go where the jobs are (putting this politely).
It's just Boris · May 13, 2026 at 1:40 pm
The physics one is interesting, and one I can speak a little to. I would be curious as to what degree (Bachelor’s, masters, doctorate) that list is based on. If it’s all bachelor’s, physics being on there isn’t surprising.
Generally, the advice I would give (and have given), don’t start into a degree program in physics unless you intend to go all the way to a Ph.D. There are jobs for physics at the bachelor’s level outside of teaching, but not very many and most of them translate to something like “lab technician.” But you’ll have a general education, and would likely lose out to someone with a bachelor’s in, say, EE or MechEng with more specialized training in a particular area.
Tom235 · May 14, 2026 at 7:14 am
I was going to say the same thing about physics: to be a “physicist” is a PhD level position. A BS in physics is a ticket to the MS which is the ticket to the PhD … and a job as a physicist. Or a ticket to nowhere much.
Computer science bachelors is also simply a background. Your BS level may be out-of-date but it’s the stepping stone to more advanced study (“computer science/engineering” is not simply programming) … but as was mentioned above, also has the problem of H1Bs taking over those positions (H1Bs often work under conditions not acceptable to American workers … but more acceptable to the companies that hire them)
Unknownsailor · May 13, 2026 at 3:26 pm
In 1970 employers could give employees IQ tests before promoting them into roles that required more intellect than strength.
Then Griggs vs Duke Power came, where black employees of Duke Power sued because the tests they had to take to get promoted filtered out blacks more than other races. This court case established the concept of disparate impact, where it is assumed to be racist if one protected group is disproportionally affected by some policy.
Employers responded by using a college degree as a proxy for an IQ test. College admission standards were, at the time, filtering out the less intelligent (couldn’t meet the SAT/ACT entrance scores.) this worked for a while, through the 1970s and into the 1980s, but the trend of college graduates earning more could not fly under the radar for long. Progressive politicians started to get involved in the 1990s, and they, predictably, assumed it was the degree that brought in the better pay, and not the higher IQ that degree represented.
As society tried to shove more and more people into university, the filtering affect of admission standards were gradually degraded, and eventually done away with entirely. University administrators were perfectly willing to debase the academic rigor of their programs to get access to that veritable river of federally backed student loans.
30 years later, and here we are, people who used to earn a living with their hands now have degrees that are worthless as an indicator for intelligence, and the entire edifice rolls along, based on the prestige and selectivity that a college degree used to hold, but no longer does.
Himself · May 14, 2026 at 7:31 am
Tests for aptitude lasted into the 80s. I took at least two. Its’ a shame. Because a dude with some intellect and drive could get themselves a decent gig just by sitting for the test.
The big issue here is that a high school degree is mostly useless today. In my kids high school, you could coast and get a degree for little to no work. They want them to graduate. Makes their numbers look better. The other side of that is they could also take AP classes and graduate pretty sharp. But there really isn’t any way to quantify that on paper if you are an employer.
Then they go on to college and graduate even more stupid.
Anonymous · May 13, 2026 at 3:37 pm
Well, the little star of the video is self entitled , privileged, and feels she belongs to a “better” class of idiots since she WENT TO COLLEGE AND GOT A MASTERS DEGREE. (Full Stop.) It is a scam that is thrown at everyone from 5th grade on, because teachers will do anything to protect other teachers and their jobs.
I have a friend whose grandfather was Walt Disney’s moneyman. He was the guy that got the cash for Disney Studios to become a Big Deal. She grew up in Malibu on a ranch on the beach. It was originally the grandparents home when folks in Hollywood did not go to Europe but went to Malibu. When it came time for my friend and her younger brother to go to college-they each got $100,000 to see them through……tuition, dorm rooms, and fun times. Well, the younger brother took his girlfriend on fun trip through California trying to become a rockstar. (He did not make it but smoked lots of great cannabis from the Mexican border to the Oregon Coast. Now into real estate.) Ms. T got her bachelors degree and then her masters in Early Childhood Education. The result? Ms. T taught kindergarten, picking up every disease known to man, and then quit to become a real estate agent. Fast forward…….in 2012 she thought about going back into teaching. OH NOES!! The teacher’s union, in its infinite wisdom, demanded she go through a year of “re-education” classes. Yep-teachers protecting other teachers from other teachers. Ohhhh-Kay…..The whole college=great job is a scam that ended in 1980. Unless you are going to be an RN, a MedDoc, a Lawyer, or the Chief Indian, college degrees are worthless, I know, I have one in Pharmacology. So I can get into a Med program, do 5 years of residency at a hospital and maybe be a pharmacist…….or I am a pharmacy tech. Or a pharmacy clerk. It was a hard major and I can do a lot of stuff that is now relegated to machines. Kids at work ask me about college-I tell them to learn to be a plumber or electrician or an HVAC guy. You will be employed when you’re 90.
Steady Steve · May 13, 2026 at 4:16 pm
The reason some employers require a college degree is that they assume 2 things. That the employee will be compliant and go along with any rules, no matter how ridiculous, and that they will stay at the job no matter how shitty the pay as they have a loan to pay back. When I left high school the kids who went right into a trade ( plumber, electrician, welder, machinist) were getting great pay as an apprentice with no loan to pay back. The talented ones could name their price and could change employers without taking a pay cut. The kids that went to college even at that time had to pay expenses and some had loans or borrowed from parents. They took years to work their way up to high paying positions. The tradesmen had homes and families and some had their own business in the same time period. So a degree wasn’t much of an advantage then.
Anonymous · May 13, 2026 at 8:27 pm
” College needs to be trimmed down and made cheaper.” – Dontcha know it. I have an anecdotal example here:
I recently was at an Endodontic practice for treatment. The practice employs several associates. One of them caught my eye when I was reviewing their qualifications, because she was from India. Rather than having a DDS (doctor of dental science) degree listed, she has only a BDS – guessing you can figure out what the B stands for. All she had to do was get stateside and do a short fellowship in the USA to qualify to practice endodontia here. She end runs her American colleagues by only needing to complete a baccalaureate degree. Were she an American Endodontist she would need to complete undergrad, dental school, and then a residency in that specialty.
Steve · May 14, 2026 at 12:09 am
Having been an employer, the only reason I wanted a degree for anything that had promotion opportunities was that it was evidence the person was trainable, and was probably able to self-motivate enough to at least show up to the final exam. Not a high bar, no, but I got tired of having so many unable to meet even that.
As for the gal who couldn’t get a Target cashier job, well, of course not. Training is not free, and she is going to jump ship as soon as something else comes along. That’s just money down the drain. Much better to hire someone who is likely to still be there next week.
oldvet50 · May 14, 2026 at 6:47 am
I mostly agree with your assessment except that two years earlier, the sentiment about college should have been if you joined the military instead of college, you were stupid or poor. If you could not afford college, you were drafted into the army at 19 – automatic without a student deferrment or medical excuse (of course, that was for the guys only).
Himself · May 14, 2026 at 7:38 am
Denied? Like she was owed? You see, that attitude in an of itself is a red flag. She got ‘denied’ because she probably has no skills and a light work history. Did she work in high school, or while in college? Did she intern?
If I were the hiring manager, I’d expect her to act too good for the job and to bolt as soon as she could work her way up to a better gig.
She’s halfway cute. She ought to get some sap to wife her up.
FWIW, back in the 80s when I graduated, it took me nearly a year to get a gig in my major. When I did, I hated it. It took me less than a month to get a gig in an adjacent field.
lynn · May 14, 2026 at 2:24 pm
The total cost to get a four year Mechanical Engineering degree from Texas A&M University cost me and my parents about $10,000 from 1978 to 1982. That does not include much of my housing and food expenses. I cannot believe how much these costs have increased since then.