Large majority of Americans - 4 year degree not worth it

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In a dramatic shift, Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

What is it that makes college degrees so expensive?

I call BS...higher education will always open doors to a professional career.
AI will make it more important to also have general Stem qualifications in addition to a business degree or management degree.
And even when highschool graduates opt to bypass college, many will earn savings and go back and pay for a college degree while working.

the single factor in America is cost. Your government chooses to spend taxpayer money on defence > education and health. An American is at greater risk of homelessness and poverty if they are sick or cant pay back on student loan. Perhaps this might explain a decline in uptake of college places due to financial uncertainty.

Old saying ,popped into my mind when considering government jobs and their like . Not what you know, But who you know.
This is not to say a degree may be a good starting point when getting a job .
Having said that , have confronted many Doctors and surgeons . Who questioned how I gained the knowledge I did
to offer suggestions on My own surgeries, That they did not have a reference for . And I truley suffered the consequences at the hands of these less than opened minded College Educated Twits . And still do. The Education at College is set to cause you to fit in with the accepted ( politically)and known level of group think . Have seen and personally known at least 2 Doctors whom the Almighty AMA sued repeatedly and attempt to remove the Licenses of those same Doctors. Whose medical practices were actually helping people / children with Chronically afflicted Infectious diseases, based on their practical experiences in their own private practices .

,In another case of a Doctor,doing another surgery on me, years later, I felt the need to correct him in his use of terms. As I did not want the results from the surgery, that his Diction implied. A small thing , but incorrectly used means different things. 'ie. to Vivisect or to Dissect' , one directly implys that tissue was being manipulated or removed from a cadaver, non living organism (to Dissect). The other to remove examine or manipulate tissue from a living organism.
( to Vivisect ).. But my experiences regarding this stuff I refer to, are only the medically College Educated . And personally have a older brother, Whose degrees in Physics and Chemistry got him a job eventually , Working for the USA s. manned space program . But in a conversation with him, he could not navigate his way out of a paperbag . Because of old Dogma learnings taught to him in college. >>>>This way into paperbag>> always go forward ..! , But that does not apply if you need to back out or change direction to achieve the objective . ? ( of getting back out of the bag) . NO offence intended to those whom have successfully acquired good and accurate information from any institution of higher learning.

My multiple degrees have gotten me nowhere. i wish I would of never gone to higher education. i am at the same place in life right now I would be if I would of dropped out of high school. I should of never trusted my teachers and guidance counselors in school.

Plus any degree other than computer science is useless.

If you major in anything else, enjoy your shack in Mississippi, because that's all you'll be able to afford.

Big reason I didn't go to a 4-year college as I did not want to go into horrendous amounts of debt (which gives me anxiety just thinking about it). A lot of people go about a 4-year degree in a foolish manner, getting a major in something that's not marketable or flexible, going to an out of state college, and going in really with no plan. Also, in some situations it makes more sense to do remedial and basic courses at a community college first.

Attended a 2 year community college , was doing pretty well by their standards , had thought would continue on to go to a 4 year college , transfering credits and the like . So as I was a close to a month short of the AA degree in Comp. Science . Requiring unrelated classes to be taken,to graduate , complete all requirements for the degree . I just could not stand it another day . As soo much of the classes required did NOT relate to computer science but had to take up real estate in my memory to pass unrelated classes . I dropped out( sorry to say) .But it was earlydays of Community Colleges. Most classes were free . If you could afford the very expensive books required for the class. Used school books
were a hot item back then.Went directly to work for the City , back when they had entry level jobs. As a technical Writer
Big name for a entry level Programmer . In COBOL , but had hands on with basic and Fortran languages. You do not have to pay entry level workers . As much . And after a few years . The work became ridiculously easy.And would finish assigned programming tasks much quicker than the old time programmers there. The office was not well ventilated .
Flourescent lights beamed at me . And I was to young to understand the monosodium glutamate in my lunch time noodles were , Making me have low level allegic reactions ,Was hard to stay awake. . Job opened at Applied Data Science.a change to a night shift and , I was becoming a glorified paper shuffler there.So that was the end to a 5 year experience in Comp Programming . Business world. All Thanks to college... But I did learn patience .And to do research before starting new stuff. a kinda of a no brainer education . . final take away ; was work for yourself , You become very hard to be made redundant. ..imho

I agree that a four-year degree isn't worth it for most people. It's just a trap to get you in a bunch of debt in hopes of getting a job opportunity that will probably never materialize. At the same time, I also don't buy into the "Go to trade school and be a plumber" meme. So many people have bought into that meme that now the blue-collar labor market is completely oversaturated. The only surefire way to build a career is to look at supply and demand. What are the jobs, careers, or side hustles where demand exceeds supply. That means don't buy into memes like university or trade school, because if everyone else has the same idea, then it's pretty much a guarantee that supply will exceed demand. I apply this principle in investing too: I buy whatever everyone else is selling and sell whatever everyone else is buying. If something is popular that tends to mean that it's overvalued. Often the greatest business opportunities are in boring areas that no one cares about.

For every "type" of college degree you need to do a cost/benefit analysis. Blanket statements are meaningless.
Also depends on "where" also.
College demand is also subject to market forces. trying to say don't do college is like saying don't invest money in the stock market. Ultimately the market decides.