Is a college degree now the worst investment you can make?

My mother was a school teacher. Started in a one-room school in ranching country. She always said "an education is very important, but horse sense is more important".

The basic problem, imho, is not AI, nor "junk degrees". It is economics: from the idea you need a college degree, any old degree, to qualify for any job, no matter how basic, to the withdrawal of public funding for public universities, to the predatory, credit card -type scam of "student loans" intended to keep you paying off the interest rates for a lifetime.

I attended what was then, and still now in many polls/studies, the #1 university (or at least #! public university) in the U.S. As a state resident, there was no tuition. Only a minimal "incidental fees" each semester to cover health care services at the campus infirmary/hospital and a portion to the student government which actually ran the athletic programs, the student union, and other such "amenities". (Rock climbing was left to a huge rock not far from campus in a public park, where the renaissance of rock climbing was just catching on.)

Then Reagan became Governor. And in his backlash against student protests -- along with the National Guard, tear gas, and tanks -- came the significant cutting of public funding for the university and college system on the one hand, and the University taking ownership of the amenities previously run by the students. To survive financially, the university instituted ever-increasing in-state tuition, turned to wooing out-of-state, primarily foreign students who would pay higher tuition, became more about winning and running research & development contracts for the Federal Government and major corporations, and -- of course, turning student-athletes into professionals where coaches earned millions more than actual professors all in search of "brand identification" and TV contracts. Now students couldn't afford to come, so the Feds stepped in with a student loan program geared to saddling them to paying interest only for most of their lives if they couldn't pay it off quickly.

And the marketing became focused more on the amenities than the education.

There is nothing wrong with "junk degrees". A valid purpose of universities throughout history has been to advance philosophy, history, arts and language -- our culture -- and not just prepare you for a job. It prepares you also to be a more knowledgeable contributor to community and society. If anything, the science and technical students need it more than anyone to broaden their views on life and to become more empathetic.

We forced universities into becoming more marketing oriented, and kids into thinking they needed a degree to get a job. We need to get back to supporting public education, and the concept that there are multiple tracks for jobs -- junior colleges, even high schools, can provide the vocational skills for a good portion of the job market. Stop seeing education as a way to financially hooking students into life-long debt but as a way of uplifting all of society and expanding the middle class once again.