Bachelor’s Degrees Aren’t Cool Anymore

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | May 28, 2026 | Sherman Criner

[karpov]

In a new research brief, The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education found that only 44 percent of American high school students expected to earn a bachelor’s degree in 2022, down from 72 percent in 2002. The study also revealed a parental gap among high school students, with only 33 percent of first-generation students aspiring to a bachelor’s degree in 2022, compared to 60 percent two decades earlier. What are Americans, particularly those concerned about the state of higher education, to make of these findings? Are they just one of many societal indicators of an “empire in decline,” or are they more localized signs of a defect in the American system of higher education?

To answer this question, one must first understand that this skepticism is not exactly borne out in the decisions of these young Americans. Data on immediate college enrollment rates of American high school completers—provided by the National Center for Education Statistics—demonstrates a fairly constant trend of high schoolers enrolling in college from 2002 to 2022. Though it is true that 3.2 percent fewer high school graduates immediately enrolled in college from 2002 to 2022, these numbers are rather deceptive.

More high school completers immediately enrolled in colleges before the pandemic in 2019 than in 2002, 66.2 percent to 65.2 percent, respectively. This indicates that high schoolers are not systematically abandoning college as an option. Rather, when read in conjunction with the Pell Institute’s findings, they seem to believe that higher education has less of a comparative advantage. This suggests that the Pell Institute’s findings are more reflective of a general pessimism towards college amongst the nation’s youth than the impending collapse of the American university marketplace.

So why, if young people are still enrolling at consistently high rates, are they so skeptical?

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education
KEYWORDS: college; racism

[Tell It Right]

The article eventually focuses on a trend by young adults to want a career with easy cash, like being a social media influencer or professional gamer.

I hear some of that. But what the article doesn't say is what I'm hearing more of: that formal education sucks, especially public schools. My grown kids have given us our first grandkid with others probably on the way in the near future. And every one of my kids and their spouses and their friends and their friends' spouses say that their kids won't go to public school. Why? For the same reasons that they didn't want to go to college unless they had a very specific career goal in mind (i.e. one of my kids went to nursing school -- college that was worth it).

They don't want the constant blame-the-whitey indoctrination called "education". They don't want their sons to be told they're evil for being male, nor do they want their daughters to be taught to hate men. Etc. They didn't like it in high school and they sure don't want to waste time and money for it in college. Perhaps the smartest of our kids (though you couldn't have convinced me of it when he was growing up LOL) went to trade school and he became an aircraft mechanic.

[blackdog]

College degrees don't plant crops, weld municipal gas service utility lines, run wastewater treatment plants, keep boilers functioning, dig high rise foundations, pour and finish concrete, repair or replace roofs, fix leaking pipes, replace toilets, replace flattened tires, process livestock into the meat you eat, repair your cars, wire a building for electricity, or dig the grave for your needed burials.

And neither does AI.......So go learn a trade. You will never run out of work.

[T.B. Yoits]

If you don’t have the correct skin color or have the correct genitalia, fewer and fewer degrees that are worth it anymore, especially considering that colleges are to indoctrinate students, not actually teach them something meaningful.

[T.B. Yoits]

“Many colleges claim that they develop ‘leaders’. All too often, that means turning out graduates who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do. There are already too many people like that, and they are a menace to everyone else’s freedom.” - Thomas Sowell

[T.B. Yoits]

[T.B. Yoits]

[T.B. Yoits]

[Honorary Serb]

Uneducated YouTubers and professional gamers are mere professional BS-slingers!

Unfortunately, there are even some people with a BS from Harvard who become professional YouTubers!

Our youth can do better!

[T.B. Yoits]

[T.B. Yoits]

[ClearCase_guy]

I really think that at this point, the dumb kids go to college and the smart kids learn a trade. I think that rule of thumb works for 99% of cases.

[T.B. Yoits]

[DIRTYSECRET]

You’re a bit late Karpov. Stick to chess.

Gotta admit the industrial complexes feed on our ignorance.

[dfwgator]

Education has been replaced with Indoctrination.

[pburgh01]

Black women went to college in record numbers, and have ever had an interaction with one? Just as big a bunch of babbling baboons as the ghetto Latishas who limped out of H.S. They are a sizable portion of your lower- and middle-level bureaucrats in the federal/state government.

[Seruzawa]

College programs that lead to decent jobs have one thing in common. They aren’t easy. The public schools have created a generation that is used to being validated not matter how worthless they are. Of course they won’t study stem programs. They think they can live well as influencers. It’s going to be a tough lesson. Most won’t learn from it. They will just demand the govt provide them an easy life.

[Red Badger]

Colleges and universities, both elite and local, are churning out worthless degrees that cost the students tons of money and they cannot get a decent job with it.

And they wonder why they are in decline?...............

[SpaceBar]

The 1960’s convinced the powers that be that young people who could actually think was a dangerous thing and the movement from a classical education to trade schools started in earnest.

[Leaning Right]

College should be thought as a trade school. Go to college to learn a useful trade. Engineering, medicine, etc.

Do not go there otherwise. It’s too expensive. Learn a useful trade elsewhere. And read and explore on your own, to make yourself a well-rounded person.

But suppose you’re not sure? Then start out at a low-cost community college. Test the waters. Take a physics course. A biology course. See how you do.