I would wager that two years of apprenticeship - actually doing something - would go farther in the marketplace than these specious four-year degrees (excepting of course hard sciences, math, engineering).
Even worse, many people go for Masters and Ph.Ds and end up in their mid-30s never having held a job in their lives, and finding that there are so many others just like them that the competition for the few jobs for which they may be qualified is among the most intense in the market. These people are essentially unemployable, unfit for even menial labor because they have never developed the most basic of work ethics.
One of the saddest people I know is a 36-year-old Art History Ph.D. candidate. She has no future whatsoever other than sucking the teat of her daddy's fortune until she is old and grey - not even marriageable since no man would want to acquire a wife who has done nothing substantial for anyone else in her entire life and is nearing the end of her childbearing years anyway.
The whole apprenticeship thing is extremely dicey. Pick the wrong field and you're screwed for life. Tool and die work, for instance, is dead in this country. Though a guy I used to know did something similar for diamonds/gems and went from minimum wage to six figures in a couple of years.
Interesting about your friend the art history student. I happen to know a couple who are doing pretty well in museums and galleries and auction hourses. Combine art history with an MBA and you have a killer resume. Could it be that she's not all that motivated?
That is a valid point about the elderly getting graduate degrees. Even the younger ones, say a mid-twenties with a fresh MS in biology, who has not been working all along, may indeed get a job with the state but will never actually contribute anything except to his own retirement package.
I think 18-year-olds should have a year or so of a dead-end job in the real world before they go to college. I really think that with some real experiences smacking them in the face at that tender age, a lot of the BS peddled by progressive professors wouldn't pass the smell test and be challenged.
Ooops! You've described my daughter! She has three degrees and has no job. Now she's trying for another as an expert in disaster control. She will not get a job from all that study either. Advice from old Dad did not enter her head during all this useless education. Mercy!