Posted on 11/03/2025 8:48:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Jessica Iannacchino landed on Madison Avenue in New York City, but a career in her chosen field just wasn’t in the cards.
The 21-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York, attended public colleges in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, to complete a bachelor’s in advertising, paying out-of-state tuition and committing to monthly student loan repayments for years to come.
She moved to Manhattan to get her foot in the door somewhere, but none opened.
Iannacchino delivered food to pay the rent and found enjoyable work in acting, appearing in a few small roles. She has several friends who also haven’t secured jobs in their fields, and are saddled with sky-high debt from attending Columbia and New York University.
“We moved here for career opportunities and then found everything was so competitive and the job market wasn’t what we thought it would be,” Iannacchino told The Epoch Times.
“It’s a lot of financial stress, and you don’t know if you’ll get a break.”
A recent Pew Research Center survey underscores Iannacchino’s situation: Seven in 10 adults say America’s higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56 percent providing that response five years ago. Policy experts, federal lawmakers, and President Donald Trump, all aware of national doubt about whether college is worth the cost, are pushing for more transparency over its return on investment.
“A college degree isn’t what it used to be,” Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said.
“It’s no longer an automatic ticket to the American Dream and the middle class. It’s been that way for a while now, but public perception is still catching up.”
The Pew survey said 79 percent of the 3,445 respondents indicated that colleges and universities are doing an unsatisfactory job of keeping costs affordable, and more than half rated higher education institutions as fair or poor in preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.
The College Board’s most recent “Education Pays” report indicates that 39 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had a bachelor’s degree in 2021, up from 22 percent 40 years prior. It also listed the median income for a four-year degree at $73,300 compared to $44,300 for a high school diploma and $52,100 for an associate’s degree.
However, those figures, commonly cited by high school guidance counselors, are very general and don’t pertain to all programs of study. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published research earlier this year that noted that 23 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 43 percent of master’s degrees had a negative return on investment.
“All universities should strive to uphold the educational Hippocratic oath,” Cooper wrote in his April report. “Students should not be worse off financially for having attended college.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s online College Scorecard tool provides median earnings information by degree type, academic major, and institution.
A search of bachelor’s degree programs in sociology, for example, yielded 1,003 colleges and universities that offer the program, but most did not list the median earnings and debt of graduates. One of those that did, Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut reported median earnings at $42,513 after four years in the sociology program and median student loan debt for that program at $34,360, based on responses from 17 graduates.
In 2020, Gillen reported that more than 3,700 U.S. college degree programs failed a “debt-to-income test,” and at least 7,000 programs were at risk of failing.
Given that more than 100 higher education institutions have closed since then, and millions more students are struggling with student debt, a return-on-investment calculator should, ideally, be available for every major and school in the country based on federal income tax data, not just voluntary responses from graduates, he said.
“It opens the door for a better way to think about college,” he told The Epoch Times.
Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, offered to several schools across the country, would provide preferred consideration for federal funding if the institution agrees to several conditions related to admissions and hiring practices, institutional neutrality, and affordability and transparency. One of the stipulations is publicly listing the average graduate income by program and major.
A panel of university professors, during an Oct. 28 Heterodox Academy webinar, indicated support for cost controls, transparency, and accountability as proposed in the compact.
“There is an erosion of academic excellence,” said Anna Krylov, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California. “That’s a big problem we need to address.”
In Congress, the bipartisan College Transparency Act, was reintroduced in the House and the Senate in late July. If enacted, it would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and “post-collegiate outcomes.”
Republican House members, during a recent subcommittee meeting, said that they’re aware of many young constituents in their districts who are burdened with student loan debt and struggle to find decent-paying jobs.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said 21-year-old truck drivers for Walmart in his district make about $135,000 annually, while a cashier with a master’s degree he recently spoke with at a local grocery store is paid close to minimum wage.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “It’s the norm.”
Walmart has stated that a driver for its company can make as much as $110,000 per year.
The population of traditional college-age students in the United States is decreasing. Many schools are struggling financially as their customer base shrinks, and an increasing number are expected to close in the years ahead.
A look at websites for K–12 districts, state university programs, and workforce development partnerships reveals that high school students across the nation have access to college degree credits before they complete their diplomas, which further affects income and enrollment at higher learning institutions. Additionally, vocational education and apprenticeship programs are enjoying a resurgence.
Gillen said that even if colleges and universities resist Trump’s push to disclose average graduate incomes by program of study, market forces will eventually exert themselves. Schools can’t afford to maintain “ghost majors” with low enrollments and little return on investment.
“The way colleges are set up, you basically need a crisis to start changing something,” he said. “I think we are going to see that happen.”
Regardless, opportunities exist for those willing to abandon teenage career dreams as adults.
Nathan Sharpe, of Rome, New York, enrolled in Mohawk Valley Community College’s computer science program after seeing an advertisement there touting career prospects for $60,000 a year.
A decade later, Sharpe hadn’t received a single job offer in that field. Instead, he worked his way up from a payment processor to a business analyst at a local bank before taking a job in a copper product manufacturing plant, where he now works as a trained chemist.
“It [the degree] was essentially useless outside of the fact that I can brag about being the first in my family to finish any sort of college,” Sharpe told The Epoch Times.
“I will raise my son to lean more toward a skilled trade—plumber, electrician, type of thing. I don’t want him falling into the same mistakes that I did. It set me back years.”
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I do not like how higher education has become today. But I also don't think we can afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Bill Clinton used to punctuate his campaign, convention and State of the Union speeches with the line, “I want an America where every 18 year old goes to college.” It was bulls—t then. And it is bulls—t now because:
(1) Not every 18 year old likes school or wants to be there.
(2) There are many, many jobs and trades for which college education is completely useless.
(3) Many college courses are utter nonsense with no intellectual content nor any redeeming value whatsoever.
(4) Many young adults are in college for social rather than academic or career-oriented reasons. There’s sort of an expectation among the middle classes and above that their progeny have to go to college just for the sake of status and keeping up appearances with friends and neighbors.
(5) College football and basketball have become the de facto minor leagues of the NFL and NBA. It’s a colossal waste that state and federal dollars from the taxpayers are being used to finance and subsidize pro sports’ training grounds.
In my opinion, we need to get back to more like how college was 100+ years ago, i.e., an intellectually oriented place that trained scholars, teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists and engineers. If you don’t fit into one of those categories, you’re probably better off doing something else.
It is great if you are moving to a Communist or Islamic country.
If your degree path is in hard science, medical and some technology you will have a good job waiting. Mine were in Geology, and Pharmacy and a huge amount of chemistry. When I was in the last semester of both, the head hunters interviewed me by choice. They wanted my skills. It is that simple. If your degree path is difficult you will probably have a good job waiting.
Next question.
For nearly 20 years, I have been very concerned about our young men.
Just today, I encouraged a young man who is changing things out to become an electrician.
A Bachelor of Music is a BM. And that’s about what it’s worth.
Yes, it is worth it—BUT not at a high priced Ivy League school—State schools are much better and so are low coast. Community Colleges offer a good deal and many are free for the first year. AA degree can be useful in getting a job and in training for a four year school.
Nathan Sharpe [...] enrolled in Mohawk Valley Community College’s computer science program after seeing an advertisement there touting career prospects for $60,000 a year.
$60k/y is roughly $28.80 per hr. That might be fine as an entry-level salary, but shouldn't be cited as the typical remuneration.
A decade later, Sharpe hadn’t received a single job offer in that field. Instead, he worked his way up from a payment processor to a business analyst at a local bank before taking a job in a copper product manufacturing plant, where he now works as a trained chemist.
Does that mean that he has since earned a degree (B.Sc., M.Sc.) in Chemistry?
I wouldn't refer to someone as a "trained" geologist, chemist, or nuclear physicist unless he was correspondingly degreed.
Regards,
Ah, the 1950s! It was morning in America! What was the typical unemployment rate back then? 3%? How much was college tuition? $50 per semester?
Say, is ASARCO still in business? What about Bethlehem Steel?
Not to make light of your accomplishments, but the current situation is hardly comparable.
Regards,
Ask my sister who got a doctorate in Marine Biology and now some 20 years later she manages a lab testing medical Marijuana strains. So...No!
Depends on what the degree is in.
Advertising is not much better than *psychology* or English literature.
Very well said!!!!!
STEM or it’s worthless.
This.
I didn’t go to college. I find out recently I cannot sit and listen to a lecturer. My mind wanders from boredom and extremely slow delivery of information. I read a hell of a lot faster and retain the information. I am a seriously poor candidate for your basic “college” education. So I never got one.
My last employer decided to move me to an engineering slot in one of their reorganizations, “sustainment engineering” for systems. I found out later why. I would get orders from my bosses or requests from systems to go help them fix problems that they and their “papered” engineers couldn’t figure out. The “read a hell of a lot” figures in here. I always figured out what the problem was, although it may take a day or four, and generated a fix. I would also generate a written “after action” report, describing the problem and what was done to fix the problem. If the assigned engineers were able to help , I sang their praises since they were able to:
1: Help after some education.
2; Generate or find a better solution than I generated after explaining what was going on. Yeah, a couple of them did. Wrote those guys lotsa credit in my reports when deserved.
(And my bosses loved it when I did those reports.)
Not knocking “papered engineers” here. Most have a specialized education in one discipline and have problems cross over into another field. A civil or mechanical engineer cannot talk to an electronic engineer - the slang and codewords are different. The smart ones catch on pretty quick, the stupid ones never do. (And I had a couple of stupids - got rid of them, but that’s another story...)
Here - the “read a hell of a lot” comes in. I’m just a kid with a GED. I have worked with some excellent engineers in their field who were really quick to digest what I telling them about the problems and why. Loved that. The stupid ones - How quick can I get these idjits away from me. Took a while sometimes.
When I retired my employer hired three degreed engineers to replace me.
Some people aren’t made for college. Some definitely are, and we need them there.
My cousin is 75 and has a worthless Phd degree in Psychology and hasn’t worked a day in his life. His wife was a pharmacist and divorced him. Last I heard he is feeding chickens and geese on some farm in Vermont.
Bowl Movement output can be used an alternate energy source for power generation. A BM in Music doesn’t increase tin can revenues at the corner by the train station for the Saxaphone Player.
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