No College Degree, No Problem — but for Recent Graduates, the News Is Not So Good

Red State ^ | 09/07/2026 | Bob Hoge

[SeekAndFind]

The value of the once vaunted college degree has come under increased scrutiny in recent years as critics question the ridiculous cost of most four-year institutions, the fact that huge percentages of them have been leftist indoctrination camps that don’t teach the students any real professional skills that will be useful unless they want to work in the DEI department or become yet another far-left professor, and that many young people are going deep in debt only to find it's tough just to get a barista gig at Starbucks.

All but the most affluent families have to beg for financial aid as many tuition bills are closing in on $100,000. To get any help, you have to bend the knee to what I call a financial proctology exam, the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which has gotten slightly less awful in recent years but is still a painful experience.

Television host and skilled-trades advocate Mike Rowe has long been touting the trades and the lucrative careers they can provide, and on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance gave him a shout-out as he launched the Foundry School, the Trump administration’s national workforce program designed to train entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians, and industrial leaders to rebuild our manufacturing base.

Turns out Trump, Vance, and Rowe are onto something. New numbers spell good news for workers without college degrees, but not so much for those who stayed in school:

For most U.S. workers—those without college degrees, that is—it is one of the best job markets in decades.

In fact, the unemployment rate for workers ages 22 to 34 who never graduated from college has rarely been lower in the past two decades, according to a new analysis by labor-market think tank Burning Glass Institute.

WSJ: “Unemployment among younger workers who didn’t go to college has rarely been lower in recent decades. It is the opposite story for college grads … much of it boils down to supply and demand: There aren’t enough skilled tradespeople to go around”

pic.twitter.com/ea0eREoA05— Marc Porter Magee 🎓 (@marcportermagee) September 7, 2026

As Rowe has been preaching for years, there’s a shortage of skilled tradespeople, so the ones that are on the market can command solid salaries and wages. Meanwhile, with President Trump’s crackdown on immigration and the Boomer generation retiring, there are fewer bodies to fill the growing void.

For degree-holders, the opposite is true: there are more and more every year, and the field is flooded. Add artificial intelligence to the list of issues, and young people fresh out of school face even more barriers as AI increasingly has taken over the tasks of what would have been starter jobs.

“There’s a rapidly growing supply of people with a bachelor’s degree, and you have a rapid decline of people who don’t,” Gad Levanon, chief economist at Burning Glass, the outfit that produced the analysis. “I don’t think it’s a temporary thing.”

It’s important to note, however, that these numbers are relative to those seen in the past; those with college degrees still have a lower unemployment rate overall.

The good news: the August jobs report came in with much better numbers than economists had expected, with 162,000 jobs added for the month.

President Trump is delivering for America’s workers.

pic.twitter.com/RFtX2t3u0c— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) September 7, 2026

In many ways, it’s a tough time to be a young person in this day and age, something I know full well since I am parent to four of them. They’ll work it out, but if I had to do it all over again, maybe I’d send them to plumbing school.

[neverevergiveup]

There is a “shortage of skilled tradespeople”. IMHO the emphasis in that statement should be on ‘skilled’. My personal experience has been that there are plenty of people you can hire, but many of them either don’t know what they are doing, or don’t care. One of them almost burned down my house (not an exaggeration).

There’s a reason DIY has been growing in the US at a significant rate. When you realize you can do as good or better a job than the people you would be hiring, even if it takes you a bit longer, you reconsider giving your money to someone else.

[Skwor]

In the Commercial Nuclear field, technician side it doesn’t even take a little longer. In the Nuclear field regardless of whether a person has a 4, 2 or no degree on the technician side it takes exactly the same amount of time to qualify them and after the same number of years to obtain any real proficiency in the job. Only if someone comes from the Navy as a previous Navy Nuke does the time shorten.

Basically, we have found degrees outside of hiring Engineers for STEM related jobs useless. Even the STEM field Engineers go through the same program and take the same time. Literally we have hired Agricultural Engineers alongside Electrical Engineers alongside actual Nuclear Engineers, same time, same program to be useful. It is more about having enough math and physics just to get hired for the most part

Colleges are failing miserably.

[volare737]

Unless a college degree is required for a particular skill or profession, it is a waste of time and money.

[Nervous Tick]

>> There’s a reason DIY has been growing in the US at a significant rate. When you realize you can do as good or better a job than the people you would be hiring, even if it takes you a bit longer, you reconsider giving your money to someone else.

^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^

Online how-to information is easy to come by these days. If you have basic technical skills, you can tackle a wide variety of repairs and construction projects. As a bonus, you get to buy lots of tools with the money you’re saving. :-)

[GingisK]

Unless a college degree is required for a particular skill or profession, it is a waste of time and money.

You are incorrect! Knowledge is always a good thing, even if only to avoid being boring at parties. Knowledge generally enriches a person even if not directly applicable to a damn job. There should be more to a person than his job title.

[volare737]

Unfortunately you don’t get an education in college these days, you get an indoctrination. It’s a waste of time.

[Reily]

Depends on your major!

[volare737]

Agreed, as I said, unless it is required for a skill or profession,,,,,i.e. STEM majors.

[dfwgator]

Knowledge is always a good thing

[volare737]

LOL…..”Seven years of college down the drain……..”

[GingisK]

You do get to choose which classes you take and what you keep in your mind. It is a waste of time for someone whose life revolves around welding.

[volare737]

What in the world makes you think that welders have no life?

[GingisK]

Same thing that makes you think education is a waste?

[volare737]

It is a waste of time spending your time and money on institutions that teach you what to think, not how to think. Welders don’t have that problem.

[GingisK]

Neither do any technical people who graduate from universities. You are missing the most important thing I've stated: YOU choose the courses at a university and learn what you want to get out of them. I think you are looking at liberal arts graduates and assuming those with technical degrees are the same.

It comes down to your aspirations. You can choose to design spacecraft and plan trajectories, or assemble them and hose in the fuel.

[volare737]

You must have missed (at least twice) where I posted on this thread, “unless required for a skill or profession,,,,i.e. STEM majors “.

[GingisK]

Well. In true Freeper style we have been fighting for the same cause and drawing blood. Its the fight that counts. ;-D

[packagingguy]

The frustrating part is if you go to college to study something useful like nursing, chemistry and the like you’re forced to take a bunch of unrelated courses like English literature, sociology or art history.

A student should have had a “well rounded” education in high school or they shouldn’t be in college at all.

But colleges are often just High School 2.0.

[GingisK]

People who graduate with those mushy degrees probably feel satisfied. Terrifyingly, those become school teachers and administrators as well as government employees. Its a sad state of affairs.