The scent of cut grass, someone’s coffee cooling on a bench, and the subtle anxiety of finals week permeate every American college campus in late spring. On the surface, it appears exactly as it always has. However, something has changed beneath it all. At kitchen tables across the nation, parents are whispering the same awkward question: is any of this still worthwhile?
There is a reason for the skepticism. According to U.S. News and World Report, private university tuition has increased by 32% in the last 20 years. Additionally, public universities have not been particularly generous to students’ finances. Additionally, when Tim Cook of Apple publicly dismisses the need for a four-year degree as a prerequisite for employment or Alex Karp of Palantir declares he doesn’t give a damn about the educational background of his staff, the situation is different than it once was. These voices are not from the periphery. They are in charge of some of the world’s most powerful businesses.
AI then entered the discussion like a stone into still water. All of a sudden, data analysts and accountants—exactly the kind of people who used to justify their tuition costs with steady, well-paying jobs—are witnessing their skill sets being subtly absorbed by software. High-skilled knowledge work is becoming more vulnerable, according to Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford economist who spent years researching the extent of automation. To tools that can draft, analyze, and synthesize more quickly than any human seated at a desk, not just to robots on assembly lines.
Nevertheless, Frey continues to have faith in the degree. Sitting with that part is worthwhile. His reasoning is based on what classrooms still manage to produce that LLMs actually cannot, rather than prestige or tradition. sophisticated social intelligence. genuine inventiveness. the capacity to handle confusing, chaotic, human circumstances in which no prompt can save you. This was subtly confirmed by a Stanford study conducted in 2025, which discovered that while data analysis roles are declining, communication skills are actually becoming more valuable in the workplace. Anyone who is paying attention can see the irony.
There’s a feeling, more than evidence, that the students who benefit most from college aren’t the ones who commit formulas to memory. They are the ones who are learning how to think with others, how to debate a point of view over coffee, and how to fail and grow from it. Germar Gonzalez, a first-generation UCLA graduate who attended Yale and is currently employed in conservation biology, characterizes his degree as a path rather than a credential. He attributes his pursuit of a life he had truly dreamed of—one his family had no road map for—to the community, mentors, and intellectual bravery he received during his time in college.
Stubbornly, the financial data continues to support this. Those with a bachelor’s degree make about 86% more money than those with only a high school education, and their median lifetime earnings are about $1.2 million higher. Degree holders have a 50% lower unemployment rate. When a tech CEO expresses a divergent viewpoint, those figures remain unchanged.
The discrepancy between how awful things seem and how reliable the underlying data is is difficult to ignore. The vibes are awful, but for the majority of graduates, the investment still pays off, according to a recent Vox article. Perhaps the truth is that attending college has never been a straightforward transaction—tuition in, salary out. Compared to that, it is slower and messier. It was always the case. It’s not really a question of whether the degree is worthwhile. The question is whether you’re prepared to add value to it.
