If I may expand upon what you've said... A lot of this is anecdotal so take it for what it is. Let's rewind a generation or so and pretend to be our parents.

If I may expand upon what you've said... A lot of this is anecdotal so take it for what it is. Let's rewind a generation or so and pretend to be our parents. At a very basic level, looking around, I see a pattern of "X went to college, and X has a better standard of living than I do". Easy answer: college makes life better. I want my kids to do that well, so I better get little Sally to go to college. I don't know whether that's entirely true or not, but I think that college has been the "easy answer" for a generation. Somehow things like work-ethic, realistic career goals, etc. got lost along the way. I hate the idea that "if we go through college and get the degree, we'll be all set in life." Who has been saying that? Anyone saying that is either lazy or worse. All degrees were not created equal, and it seems that a surprising number of people either honestly thought all degrees were equally valuable or people simply didn't put any thought into their career or life before signing up for tens of thousands of dollars in loans. If we use the same analogy I had above, I think the "if you go to college, you'll be set" is completely wrong. 20 years ago, the people who went to college were, in general, the more motivated set of people who actively sought to go to college. They weren't just following the prescribed plan, they actually were thinking about what they wanted to do with their lives, what they loved, how to achieve their goals. Now that college is the "default", everyone goes to college, it's just expected. Anyways, this whole thing wasn't a bash on people who do and don't go to college. Of course there are going to be more taxi drivers with college degrees now: a much higher percentage of people have college degrees now. Everyone is expected and encouraged to go to college. There are still going to be taxi drivers, bartenders and other such positions.