> But you still need the degree to compete in most cases. But who wants to compete in the first place? Those of us in the tech industry know better than anyone

> But you still need the degree to compete in most cases. But who wants to compete in the first place? Those of us in the tech industry know better than anyone that the path that is beneficial is one where employers struggle to hire. Compensation and benefits rise where employers have to compete for talent, not where talent has to compete for jobs. Fortune favours those who are able to offer something that isn't copied a many times over; where competition is nowhere to be found. Certainly that does make it easy for us in tech to sit in our ivory towers that lack degrees hanging on the wall and scoff at those flipping burgers at McDonalds who perhaps really did need a degree to win the spot, but there's something wrong if you have to burden the opportunity cost that equates to near one million dollars in a lifetime to secure a precarious minimum wage position. That needs to be scrutinized, not emboldened with additional government supports. Whether or not the marketing was intended to be fraudulent, it is certain that colleges have benefitted from the commonly held, but mistaken, belief that a degree will increase one's income. That notion is what students use to justify the high cost of college, seeing it as a long term investment that will pay dividends later. In fairness, it was a reasonable prediction at the time it was first asserted given the limited information available, but now that we have more data it is abundantly clear that incomes have remained stagnant. The promise of higher incomes did not materialize and colleges are more than happy to sweep that under the rug.