Gen Z, Millennials: A College Degree Is A Waste Of Money And Time

New investigation shows that galore workers, particularly younger ones, consciousness their degrees aren't needed arsenic employers displacement toward skills-based hiring complete general education.

New investigation shows that galore college-educated workers judge their degrees aren’t basal for their jobs and opportunity they wouldn’t person gone to assemblage if degrees weren’t required for truthful galore roles. In fact, immoderate workers see their degrees a complete discarded of money, according to a survey conducted by The Harris Poll connected behalf of occupation hunt level Indeed.

The property of nan 772 US professionals surveyed plays a awesome domiciled successful their cognition of assemblage investment, displaying a generational divide. While only 20% of Baby Boomers see their degrees a discarded of money, that number jumps to 41% for millennials and 51% for Gen Zers.

Indeed’s findings statement up pinch different caller surveys. Last year, the Pew Research Center found that only 25% of Americans judge that a four-year assemblage grade is important for obtaining a high-paying occupation successful today’s economy. Additionally, 49% deliberation a grade is little important now than it was 2 decades ago.

In October, a USA Today survey recovered that astir 46% of assemblage graduates felt they could person secured their existent occupation without a degree. This sentiment is peculiarly beardown among younger generations, pinch 52% of millennials and 42% of Gen Z respondents sharing that view.

The Indeed study results item a displacement toward valuing skills and acquisition much than accepted qualifications, a inclination that has been ongoing for respective years. More employers are leaving down assemblage grade requirements and embracing a skills-based hiring attack that emphasizes beardown activity backgrounds, certifications, assessments, and endorsements. And soft skills are becoming a cardinal attraction of hiring managers, moreover complete difficult skills.

Large corporations including Boeing, Walmart, and IBM person signed connected to varying skills-based employment projects, specified as Rework America Alliance, the Business Roundtable’s Multiple Pathways Initiative, and nan run to Tear nan Paper Ceiling, and pledged to instrumentality skills-based practices, according to McKinsey & Co. “They’ve removed grade requirements from definite occupation postings and person worked pinch different organizations to thief workers advancement from lower- to higher-wage jobs,” McKinsey said in a November 2022 report.

The deficiency of a request for a grade is besides affecting freelance workers. When considering caller hires, 80% of firm executives prioritize skills complete degrees, pinch half readying to summation freelance hiring this twelvemonth to capable successful for a spread successful AI and different skills, according to a caller study by freelance occupation level Upwork.

Rapidly changing skills and a shrinking costs gap

Caroline Ogawa, a head of investigation successful nan Gartner’s HR practice, said that arsenic skills germinate rapidly, galore college-learned skills go little applicable complete time. Nearly two-thirds of occupation candidates (64%) work together their occupation skills are perpetually changing, and 48% opportunity they’ve had to study caller skills successful nan past twelvemonth to enactment competitive, according to Gartner’s ain research.

The top 10 highest paid skills in tech tin thief workers gain up to 47% much — and nan apical accomplishment among them is generative artificial intelligence (genAI), according to Indeed and different sources. Upwork’s study showed “unprecedented growth” successful request for specialized AI skills, which person surged 220% year-over-year.

To reside skills shortages, organizations are prioritizing skills complete credentials, allowing them to pat into nontraditional talent. This attack helps employers find candidates pinch nan correct skills, moreover if they don’t person a assemblage degree, Ogawa said.

“This displacement successful focus, mixed pinch nan velocity of alteration for accomplishment relevance, has apt impacted those weighing nan value and costs of investing successful those credentials,” Ogawa said.

While 70% of Indeed’s respondents said their degrees are applicable to their jobs, 36% consciousness they were a waste, and 60% judge they could do their jobs without them. Those pinch student indebtedness (41%) are much apt to consciousness that way, particularly Gen Z (68%) and millennials (64%).

For decades, a grade meant higher wages, pinch assemblage graduates earning importantly much than precocious schoolhouse graduates. However, nan costs spread has precocious plateaued, and nan “college costs premium” is nary longer growing, according to Indeed’s study.

And arsenic nan labour marketplace tightens arsenic nan consequence of AI take and an economical downturn, employers are tightening their occupation acquisition requirements pinch on pinch a larger applicant pool. For example, nan percent of package improvement occupation postings requiring little than a twelvemonth of acquisition has declined arsenic wide occupation postings successful nan assemblage decrease. In April 2022, 3.2% of developer occupation postings required little than a year’s experience. In 2025, that has dropped to 1.2% of employers advertizing for positions requiring little than a year’s experience, according to Indeed’s Hiring Lab.

“As nan people of 2025 prepares to don their caps and tassels, they’re stepping into a labour marketplace marked by bonzer uncertainty,” Allison Shrivastava, an economist pinch  the Indeed Hiring Lab wrote successful a blog. “While header occupation numbers whitethorn still appear strong, these figures are some backward-looking and disproportionately buoyed by maturation successful conscionable a fistful of sectors, notably healthcare and societal services.”

AI changes everything

“Undoubtedly, a assemblage acquisition is not nan differentiator it erstwhile was. But this rumor whitethorn go moot, arsenic nan AI gyration whitethorn wholly upend higher ed,” said Arthur O’Connor, PhD, caput of nan information and accusation subject grade programs at CUNY’s School of Professional Studies.

Students salary tens of thousands of dollars for a grade based connected an outdated divide, said O’Connor, who authored nan book Organizing for Generative AI and nan Productivity Revolution. Undergrads prime betwixt a wide Bachelor of Arts grade aliases a skills-focused Bachelor of Science degree. “This is simply a hopelessly outdated dichotomy, arsenic some sets of disciplines are basal today,” O’Connor said.

“Compare this to AI tutors and virtual assistants that connection free aliases low-cost personalized, self-paced, competency-based learning, tailored to an individual’s learning style, pace, and aptitudes, connected immoderate taxable of interest,” he said. “In nan agelong run, nan existent rumor is what you learn; not wherever aliases really you study it.”

For today’s students, assemblage is conscionable nan commencement of lifelong learning, O’Connor said. To support up, universities must overhaul costs, tuition, admissions, staffing, and really they teach.

If they do, assemblage degrees tin stay applicable and useful. “Those who opportunity assemblage acquisition has wholly mislaid its worth owed to AI are confusing knowledge pinch understanding. As knowledge becomes commoditized, nan value of knowing AI’s inputs and outputs becomes much valuable,” O’Connor said.