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I think 'mirage' is the wrong word; college very much has gone out of vogue as a place of learning. But if you want to get a good job, you still do need to go to get the piece of paper, regardless of whether you think you'll be learning anything. The other factor you have to keep in mind is that college is where every 'smart' 20ish yo goes. If you want to meet people your age similar to you they are most likely all in college! It's difficult as a 20ish yo to have a social life outside of college.

I personally took a gap year working at a startup mid college, and as much as I enjoyed working I still ended up coming back to college purely for those two reasons.

The whole college backlash thing - I mean, I'm sure there are many people who want to change how colleges and universities operate for sure, but is there really an alternative especially for white collar, middle class+ folks? Sure a small percent can start a business, and yes, some people will naturally be part of the trades, but I 'haven't actually heard anyone propose an alternative, and zero of my family members including the very conservative ones seem to be taking the idea of not going to college seriously.

From the article:

“Oftentimes, people say that not everybody should go to college, and that these two-year programs, these trade schools, are really good,” Strohl said. “Ask them where they’re sending their kids.”

We're in this moment where I think everyone wants to talk about burning everything down, but at least for now, the real losers are the people who buy too much into it without a solid alternative plan. Entrepeneurs may do well, but they were never the ones to listen to the median perspective on how to approach life.

If you look at the conjunction of standards going down, and student loans effectively being government sanctioned predatory debt subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and "education" being a sacred cow in certain circles, then of course degree mills are going to be churning out more than ever before.

People aren't being educated, they're being credentialed, and you can no longer assume the quality of a credential. I will trust 100 of 100 people who can coherently explain a system or process over people purportedly credentialed for a thing.

It's far easier to make more money in trades, or to earn experience and work outside traditional career ladders with no degree. These days you can gain experience in technical domains and even without certifications or degrees you can get to the top 5% of paying jobs. Not all jobs, not everywhere, but it's very, very common to see experience exceptions. Prove you can do a thing, that you're good at a thing, and that matters far more than a degree.

The best you can assume from a degree is that a person has enough persistence to stick it out for 4 years on a singular goal. In rare instances, their capabilities are going to align well with the best of what their credentials imply, and they'll actually be exemplary.

Most of the time, in my experience, degrees are nothing more than attendance slips, these days. Congratulations, you're literate and showed up.

People who are interested in specific career tracks are obligated to go to university. Medicine, law, teaching, certain forms of engineering all require a degree. Fields like business, accounting, public service (even police/fire) and other forms engineering practically require a degree - while a person can break into some of those fields without them, the majority of people have degrees.

Also, I think a good bit of people are pushing anti-college sentiment as a way to keep other peoples' kids out of college, saving space for theirs and reducing competition for jobs. I've run into quite a few white collar professions that espouse "trades" (generically, of course) as a clearly better alternative to university, but aren't pushing their kids in that direction.

Real "college backlash" won't come until degree requirements fall for careers. Which is not something I see happening.

There is a demographic element to this. Right about now we are at peak enrollment/competitiveness for colleges based on the number of total students in the country. That number will steadily decline from here, which will combined with the declining sentiment of students and the job market will likely result in some major shakeups (colleges failing) over the next decade or so.

Everyone wants to look at sentiment and enrollment numbers alone, but the demographic outlook is a huge factor in all of this.

The higher education system is largely a scam. I have a degree in CS but I didn't really need to get it. I was already coding in C++ and other languages before I even went. I used to argue the opposite and that I would never have learned O notation (and its purpose), or red-black trees, etc... But the internet since the time I graduated (2003) has massively filled out what you can learn. Yes a college "forces" you to learn this stuff - but there HAS to be another way to FORCE someone to look at YT without taking on 100k of debt.

The one thing I would say that I agree about however is there is a difference in a person that went to college vs one that didn't. It's not exactly what they learned, but the filter they had to punish themselves through to say "I finished college". And yes, there is no other filter that does that. You can find people like that who didn't go to college too, but the "filter" is a convenient thing for employers.

We need to go back to a system where there are apprentices and masters and get rid of this entire college thing. The filter works just as well in those scenarios without putting people in 100k of debt.

Paywalled, but does this article take into account college being used as a mechanism to immigrate?

https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics

>U.S. Nonresident Enrollment

>Since 2010, attendance is up 36.8%.

Also, US births peaked around 18 years ago, and:

>The only jurisdictions to see an increase in the number of students enrolled since 2010 are New Hampshire, Utah, Idaho, Delaware, and Texas, as well as the District of Columbia.

From there data, it looks like you only regret college once you graduate and look for jobs. What I've heard from people is that there's still a lot of pressure to go to college, and students who've said they wanted to go into trades/plumbing/etc end up getting pushed into college by senior year. School is still set up to push students into college, and I'm not sure that's a good idea since so many people who attend seem to regret it.