Young People Question the Value of College

A college degree was once the pinnacle of the American dream. Today, much of the younger generation holds a significantly less positive attitude towards college education, according to various studies and student opinions.

“I don’t know, my general attitude towards it is clearly not positive,” said Carly Janscha, a Cybersecurity student at Waukesha County Technical College. “It kind of feels like college is a scam at this point.”

Janscha chose to attend WCTC because of its low cost relative to other secondary education institutions in Wisconsin. The average annual cost to attend WCTC is $9,000, compared to UW Milwaukee’s average cost of $16,000 annually, according to the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard. 

“We’ve been getting less and less money from the state,” said Andrew Cuneo, senior academic advising manager at UWM. “There’s been state cuts and it has pushed up the price of tuition. That’s scaring students away. When you go $70,000 to $80,000 in debt for a communications major, the payoff’s not worth it anymore to these Gen Z students.”

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, universities across the nation collectively experienced a 15% decline in enrollment from 2010 to 2021.

Unlike the rest of the nation, UWM’s enrollment rates have increased in 2025, setting the record for the highest freshman class since 2009, according to a UWM Report. But with only a 52% graduation rate, the retention for young students has proven to be difficult.

“One of the most frightening things I’ve seen in the last five years is students that have basic need crises, they don’t have access to food,” said Cuneo. “It’s no wonder that they’re in debt and can’t sign up for their classes on time and all that. Because they can’t even provide for their basic needs.”

However, Gen Z is not the only generation that said that college is not worth the cost. Kasey Knecht a current nurse practitioner, and a graduate from Concordia University and Mount Mary Columbia College, believes that his salary does not justify the cost of his college education.

“College definitely should be cheaper based on the job you’re going for,” said Knecht. “Myself being a nurse, the average starting salary was $40,000 to $50,000 a year. I graduated with a $120,000 debt, that shouldn’t be the thing. College should reflect that.”

According to Ryan Jenkins Wall Street Journal bestselling leadership author, only 27% of young college graduates say they are living comfortably with their student loans.

“The price of universities has, at least to my understanding, gone up way more than to just account for inflation,” said Janscha. “Seemingly with no major increases in quality. I think a lot of people end up going into debt for a job that everybody has the same credentials for.”

According to a BestColleges study in 2022, 52% of high school students feel a pressure to make important life decisions too quickly and 1 in 3 believe that the cost of college will have a major impact on their future.

Sofia Koenig a freshman at UWM, said that she could have made better decisions regarding her education if she had more time and was better educated about the benefits of taking a gap year.

“I feel like I probably shouldn’t have gone off to college, and I should have just started immediately in a gap year,” said Koenig, an Accounting and French major at UWM. “It’s like there is that pressure from everybody.”

Forty-six percent of Gen-Z students believe that the education they receive at college is not worth the cost, according to a Business Insider poll.

“College is very useful for when it’s supposed to be, but we have to stop sending everybody to college with the ultimate goal of college,” Knecht said. “And it should be reformed to a degree that meets your salary expectations.”