The sentiment about going to college is changing, career counseling experts say. It used to be seen as a one-way ticket to a career and eventual financial stability, but mounting student loan debt and a shaky job market have turned earning a college degree into more of a question than a given.
“Many older generations had the luxury of living in a market where their college degree was practically a get-a-job-free card after graduation,” Kolby Goodman, a career coach at Employed By Graduation, told Fortune. “Now, with more and more people pursuing higher education, fewer and fewer entry-level roles, and the breakneck speed of evolving technology, there’s a lot more uncertainty and lack of guarantees.”
ResumeGenius recently surveyed 1,000 full-time Gen Z workers across the U.S. on their views of college degrees and whether they’d choose a different career path. A lot of them wish they had made different choices, the survey revealed. About one in four said they regret going to college or wish they had chosen a higher-paying field like tech, finance, engineering, or health care.
This report mirrors another survey conducted by career consultancy Tallo, which also recently surveyed more than 2,000 adults aged 18-30 about their career journeys and showed 62% of young adults said they aren’t in the career they intended to pursue. Some25% said they are actively struggling to find a job in their intended field.
“Many Gen Z students feel they were told college was the only path, only to see people with strong degrees underemployed or overlooked,” Tallo CEO Allison Danielsen told Fortune. Plus, they’re “questioning whether college still delivers real value.”
The average cost of college in the U.S. is more than $38,000 per student per year, according to the Education Data Initiative; this means the average cost of college has more than doubled in the 21st century. Meanwhile, more than 4 million Gen Zers are jobless and blame their “worthless” college degrees.
The ResumeGenius survey showed only about a third of Gen Z workers were content in the choice they made about their education and wouldn’t change it. Even parents have started to recognize the fact the value of a college degree is changing. Another recent survey by American Student Assistance of more than 3,000 middle- and high-school students showed 70% of teens say their parents are more supportive of forgoing a college education for a different pursuit like trade school or an apprenticeship.
“Parents are waking up. College doesn’t carry the same [return on investment] it once did because the cost is outrageous, and the outcome is uncertain,” Trevor Houston, a career strategist at ClearPath Wealth Strategies, previously told Fortune. “Students now face the highest amount of debt ever recorded, but job security after graduation doesn’t really exist.”
A Catch-22 for Gen Z workers
Younger generations feel stuck when it comes to choosing whether to go to college and what field to choose, Colin Rocker, a Gen Z content creator focused on career advice for early- and mid-career professionals, told Fortune.
“Damned if they do or don’t [go to college],” Rocker said. “On one hand, their parents, counselors, and professors urge them away from more liberal arts majors like literature or history, but everyday in the news, they see thousands of people laid off who work with more technical degrees like engineering, computer science, and marketing, as AI starts to take over.”
There’s “no easy choice” anymore when it comes to choosing a career path, Rocker said. It used to be that pursuing business, tech, or health care were a shoo-in for success, but that’s not necessarily the case anymore considering how AI is changing jobs across the board.
Gen Z “is now faced with carving out a place for themselves in an economy where they’re fighting for opportunity against the most advanced systems and technologies we’ve ever seen,” Rocker added.
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