College is a scam. AI can teach you anything. You can make good money on your own.
Scroll long enough in the corners of social media targeting young men, and you’ll get the message that college isn’t for you.
The pitch is simple and often overwhelming: Pursue a trade or commerce instead, because college will leave you broke and broke after four years. But researchers and higher education consultants say it’s a dangerously incomplete message.
Their concern is not that every young man should go to college. That’s because this viral anti-college content is often overshadowed by more opinionated advice about where to go to college, what to study, how much to borrow and what other ways to pay.
The anti-college echo chamber on social media
Social media that evaluate college education are diverse. Some focus on the expensive debt, while others say the curriculum fails to teach practical skills or attack the political climate.
Grant Cardone, an entrepreneur and activist, says big companies have dropped a college degree as a job requirement (truth: that doesn’t mean they’re hiring more people without degrees). The cost of tuition and lost income make him regret spending five years in college to earn an accounting degree. He argues that college costs the average person roughly $400,000 — a figure that higher education researchers dispute — while failing to guarantee a good job on the other side.
“I will never do that again,” he said in the YouTube clip. “When you’re 17, 18 years old, you need income, and you need work experience. You don’t get work experience in college.”
He continues to call the college No. 1 fastest growing asset in the US
“I don’t know that Elon [Musk] worried that I went to college. I think he just wants to know if I can send a rocket to Mars, and he’s going to hire me,” Cardone said. “This is an old, old idea. Play by our rules: House rules. Go to college.”
Anti-college videos trending on social media often follow a similar script, portraying a degree as a bad thing and presenting an alternative, according to a research paper from College Access: Research & Action (CARA), a New York City-based nonprofit organization that studies higher education. It’s the kind of content “clearly aimed at young men,” the paper said.
But while it’s true that the argument about going to college is common — you might even call it “old-fashioned” — that doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong.
Reid Higginson, director of policy research at CARA, says it’s common to see videos describing college as a scam.
“That’s a message that’s easy to digest, something that’s easy to spread and something that doesn’t have the real truth about college,” he said.
Young men are rethinking the importance of college
This attack on social media comes at a time when young men are already showing no interest in higher education. Women have long outnumbered men on campuses. But that gap has grown to record levels, with women now making up nearly 58% of the undergraduate population. When men enroll, they are less likely to graduate.
It is difficult to identify any single cause of this trend. Researchers point to several possible explanations, including early gender gaps in academic achievement, alternative career options in male-dominated fields and cultural perceptions of masculinity.
Whether the promoters are perpetuating the idea that college is not the best place for young men or simply using it for its own sake is hard to say.
Clavicular, an activist and college dropout who writes on the live streaming platform Kick, promoted the idea that college is often a waste. “A college degree is perfect [expletive] last week in Paris he said that last week.” He later added, “Imaginative people can’t go to college, it completely destroys their thinking.”
Dan Martell, a business coach with 2.7 million followers on Instagram, said in a video posted on June 14 that he would not encourage his sons to sign up. “In this AI world we live in – where I can learn anything – I truly believe in the next five years, we will wake up and these institutions will be gone.”
If college isn’t the answer, what should young men do, according to these influencers? Answers range from starting to build with AI to completing an apprenticeship to a craft.
Halima Moore, a counselor at College Achieve Central Charter School in New Jersey, says the students she works with see social media alternatives to “quick money” instead of college. These methods are often risky, and there is no comparison to the economic “security” that degrees provide, he says.
The college serves as evidence of good behavior and work ethic for employers, he says. And it’s not nearly as expensive as the promoters say. Federal and state aid can often pay for the low-income families Moore works with, she says, which often surprises parents and students.
Everyone agrees it’s a challenging job market for Gen Z college students. But Jeff Strohl, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), says the “manosphere” doesn’t see a problem.
“Every male promoter [idea] that we’ve lost our masculinity, and you’re only going to get it by hitting a nail, it’s a bit of a vision,” Strohl said.
AI doesn’t take away the importance of a college degree in the eyes of employers, Strohl said, and young workers are struggling because their education failed to teach them the right job skills.
Strohl points to a lack of money in the job market rather than any recent college failures. He calls the labor market a “freeze,” citing challenges related to taxes, interest rates, government downsizing and shrinking research funding.
“It’s created a larger pool of college-educated workers, and that feeds into entry-level workers,” he said.
What the promoters don’t tell you
Some of the anti-college messages have elements of truth: The price of a degree is unaffordable for many Americans, and many graduates struggle to manage their loan repayments.
Yet even after factoring in higher costs of attendance, the cost of college tuition — which has long been a central argument for efforts to expand high school enrollment — remains.
Workers ages 25 to 54 with a bachelor’s degree earn “70 percent more on the median than workers with only a high school diploma and face significantly lower unemployment rates,” according to research by Georgetown University’s CEW. A separate estimate from the Cleveland Fed predicts that college-educated workers will still make up about 76% of low-educated low-wage workers by 2042.
Of course, those figures are based on averages. Key reading: Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and business majors have historically led to the highest return on investment, Douglas Webber, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board, found in a 2018 report. The arts and humanities tend to yield a poor ROI, especially if you pay more for a degree. Students in those fields who attend private colleges have only about a 50-50 chance that their college investment will pay off, Webber’s model shows.
And it’s about how you take advantage of the experience. Ed Devine, regional admissions officer at Hampden-Sydney College, an all-male college in Virginia, says it’s common for students to be unsure about what they want to do professionally. Introductory classes and first student internships can provide clarity. The key is to keep the end goal in mind.
“Go into college with an eye on the career service center,” Devine said.
Some students know exactly what they want to do at a young age, and there are well-paying jobs that don’t require a two- or four-year degree. Jeremy Oskins, an auto and robotics teacher at Comanche High School in Texas, says some of his auto shop students get jobs right out of high school at Ford dealerships, for example.
“The industry is hurting so much that they want to get them out of high school and into work,” Oskins said.
But even skilled trades advocates say young people should think carefully about their options. Mike Greenawalt, the former CEO of Rosendin Electric, a major electrical contracting firm, says promoters have “overdone” ways to enter the skilled trades.
“I am happy that after almost fifty years in the industry, apprenticeship is now considered as a viable alternative, but it is not an easy thing,” he said. “They’re drawing the alternative as you’re going to make $500,000 a year for the first five years.”
In fact, the graduation rate for vocational programs is lower than college graduation rates. Skilled traders are grinding, not the get-rich-quick paradise some expect, Greenawalt said.
In the end, there is no right way for everyone. Depending on your interests and goals, getting a four-year college degree, starting a business right out of school or getting an apprenticeship may make sense — even if that message isn’t as viral as the one you see online.
