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The original was posted on /r/antiwork by /u/Leonine94 on 2026-08-15 16:17:13+00:00.

College was once sold as a ticket to the American dream. But students today are taking a tougher look at the college tradeoff: burdensome debt and no guarantee of a dream career — or employment at all, as AI threatens the jobs the degrees were meant to unlock.

"People didn't ask whether college mattered 20 years ago," says Courtney Brown, the vice president of impact and planning at Lumina Foundation. Now, "they're asking: Are today's students going to be prepared for tomorrow's jobs? Is it really helping them out?"

But there's a college confidence paradox: Even as Americans sour on higher education, they keep sending their kids to campus.

"There is still massive pressure on them from their high schools, the educators at their schools, their parents, their peers, and just the broader culture to still go to college," says The Up & Up founder and Gen Z researcher Rachel Janfaza.