Will College Pay Off in 2025?

Will college pay off for you, the student/consumer/worker? This is a question that folks have been asking for years. The short but honest answer is that it depends on who you are and what you do with the resources you have. And it depends on what you consider success. 

In 2017, we co-authored a video called the College Meltdown. At the time, it may have been considered hyperbolic and cynical. But times have changed dramatically in the last seven years. 

College and Underemployment

A study from Georgetown University found that nearly a third of colleges and universities leave students worse off financially 10 years after graduation compared to those with just a high school diploma (source). A February 2024 report by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Institute for the Future of Work found that 52% of recent four-year college graduates are underemployed within a year of graduating. According to the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, individuals who start out underemployed are 3.5 times more likely to be underemployed a decade after graduation.

Who Am I? 

For elites, college can be helpful as a status symbol and a signal to others for business partnerships and marriage. For ambitious immigrants and children of immigrants, it can be the ticket to an important credential in a competitive international labor market. In some professions, it's difficult finding good work without an elite degree. 

Will it pay off for you if you don't fall into those categories? If you are working class person who is not an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, the answer may be "no" as often as it is "yes." Race and class discrimination is still a social reality and a notable credential may be helpful to defy negative stereotypes. Whether college works for you depends on a number of factors: choosing the right major at the right time, a willingness to work long hours, and meeting the right people at school and in your internships. In some cases, there may be better options, to include higher-paying union jobs and vocational education in lucrative fields.

Even for middle-class folks college can be a questionable option, leading to anxiety, depression, and regret.  This is especially true if an individual chooses the the wrong school and the wrong major in combination with other life choices such as substance abuse (which often starts in college), early marriage, early parenthood, and living in the wrong geographic area.

Winning Majors (For Now)

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and business majors are the highest paying, leading to average annual wages of $37,000 or more at the entry level and an average of $65,000 or more annually over the course of a recipient’s career. This is only and average, and other factors may contribute to a better or worse outcome. Some majors may be lucrative, but unforeseen circumstances can make them less valuable.

Risky Majors (in the Material World)

The 10 majors with the lowest median earnings are: early childhood education ($39,000); human services and community organization ($41,000); studio arts, social work, teacher education, and visual and performing arts ($42,000); theology and religious vocations, and elementary education ($43,000); drama and theater arts and family and community service ($45,000). People who value things other than material success (like children and families, religion, and communities) may still find these jobs worthwhile. Or they may find imaginative ways to make their major and other life experience, work for them financially.