America's College Crisis

The Atlantic

4 days ago

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
College-graduation ceremonies are expressions of joy, but also of relief. As photos are taken, tassels turned, hugs exchanged, the hope is that all of the hard work, and the money, will have been worth it.
But many Americans aren't convinced that it is. Confidence in the institution of higher education has fallen sharply over the past decade, and among political groups, Republicans show the most skepticism. A 2024 Pew Research Center report noted that only one in four Americans says 'it's extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree in order to get a well-paying job in today's economy.' The fact that finding a job has gotten more difficult for recent graduates hasn't done much to inspire faith in higher education. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported in late April that the unemployment rate for recent grads is at 5.8 percent (compared with the overall unemployment rate of 4.2 percent), its highest since July 2021.
Some challenges in finding a job after graduation are more about the economic patterns of the past few years than they are about the deficiencies of college. In 2021, America was going through the 'Great Resignation,' when many people were quitting jobs to find better pay or better working conditions elsewhere. But after inflation rose dramatically that same year and the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates in 2022, demand cooled for white-collar industry jobs such as those in technology and consulting. Now 'the Great Resignation has become what some people call the 'Great Stay,'' my colleague Derek Thompson told me. 'We're still adding jobs, but there's not as many openings for the musical chairs of the economy as there used to be.'
The years immediately following the pandemic were also a time of major wage growth for traditionally low-wage industries, such as retail and hospitality,which employ a large share of workers with less formal education. But this growth may not last throughout a worker's life: In general, earnings for low-wage jobs that do not require a college degree tend to stagnate over time. 'Wages grow faster for more-educated workers because college is a gateway to professional occupations, such as business and engineering, in which workers learn new skills, get promoted, and gain managerial experience,' the economist David Deming explained in The Atlantic in 2023.
If we take the recent unemployment stats as a result of specific post-pandemic trends, they shouldn't necessarily spook people into giving up on college. But questions about the benefit of a college degree far precede the pandemic. Research by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimates that the earnings gap between college graduates and high-school graduates stopped widening around 2010 and has been fairly consistent ever since. The experts I spoke with were clear: The college wage premium is still high—in other words, college graduates make more money on average than nongraduates. In fact, the latest data suggest that the median salary for college graduates aged 22–27 is 50 percent higher than high-school graduates of the same age. But this premium doesn't appear to be going up.
Part of this story is the fact that employers have found it easier in recent years to hire high-school graduates to do the same entry-level work as college graduates. As the San Francisco Bank researchers note, this may be because we've seen a relative slowdown in the invention of new technologies that favor college graduates who are educated in using them, like desktop computers did in the 1980s. And although it's too soon to tell the effect that generative AI is having on the job market for new grads, this tech seems likely to introduce the opposite dynamic: Instead of putting college graduates at an advantage, it could decrease the number of entry-level jobs that require more formal education.
The college wage premium is still high, which means that it's still beneficial to get a degree. But for whom, exactly? A new working paper from Zachary Bleemer, an assistant professor of economics at Princeton, and Sarah Quincy, an assistant professor of economics at Vanderbilt, found that for the first half of the 20th century, college offered the same added wage value for students from both high- and low-income backgrounds. That changed after the 1960s: Since then, the overall return on college has grown, and the relative value of college for lower-income kids has steadily declined.
Some of this is because lower-income students have become less likely than higher-income students to enroll in traditional four-year colleges, instead opting for community or for-profit colleges. Another reason, Bleemer told me, is that in recent decades, many states have chosen to invest more in their flagship schools than in the local public universities, where a large share of their students are enrolled. As the gaps between these schools have widened, Bleemer said, 'the relative value of college for the lower-income kids that predominantly go to these local public institutions has fallen.' What a student chooses to major in also matters: Higher-income students have become more likely to earn degrees in computer science and engineering in recent years. As universities have become more selective about which students they admit to these degree programs, 'lower-income kids are increasingly left out of those very high-wage disciplines,' he said.
Bleemer had the same note of caution as the other experts I spoke with: Although the relative value of college for low-income students has fallen, 'it's still way bigger than zero.' He pointed me to studies from several states that show the value of college to the long-run outcomes of students who were just at the margins of being permitted to enroll in their state's public higher-education system—particularly those with lower incomes. The research shows that college-going is valuable for those kids—'far more valuable than the tuition costs' they accrue, Bleemer said.
Even though the numbers make the case for college, much of Americans' distrust in higher education has nothing to do with return on investment. Some of their skepticism is rooted in the realities of a difficult job market, but another portion is rooted in broader political views and abstract notions about the perils of academia. These doubts may also have a basis in Americans' lack of faith in institutions, and in one another.
Colleges can't solve those problems by themselves. But schools, and the governments that fund them, do have a role in earning that trust back—in strengthening universities' reputation as places for learning, discovering oneself, and finding abundant opportunity. More state and federal investment in higher education could help. As the Trump administration attempts to strip schools of federal funding, though, it's becoming clear that setting up colleges to better benefit students is not a national priority.
Here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Today's News
Donald Trump's 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports have kicked in.
The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis estimating that the tax bill working its way through Congress will increase deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. It also estimated that an additional 10.9 million people will lose health insurance by 2034 because of cuts and new eligibility rules in the bill.
President Trump said that Vladimir Putin told him he plans to respond to Ukraine's major drone attack on Russian airfields.
Evening Read
Mount Everest's Xenon-Gas Controversy Will Last Forever
It was a travesty—two travesties, actually, separate but inextricably linked. In May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a challenge that had killed more than a dozen people in the preceding decades and that scientists had once declared impossible. The catch: They breathed canisters of pure oxygen, an aid that the Everest pioneer George Mallory—one of those who died on the mountain—had once dismissed as 'a damnable heresy.'
Look. Spend time with photos of a spectacular eruption at Mount Etna.
Read. These five books will redirect your attention when you need it.
Play our daily crossword.
Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.