DEBATENATE

Topics / Education

The challenge

“College is worth it for everyone”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. For most people college is oversold and overpriced, and somebody should have told you before you signed the loan. Look at the odds. Education Department data show more than a third of full-time students at four-year schools don't finish within six years. They get the debt without the diploma. Of the ones who do finish, the New York Fed finds roughly four in ten recent grads working jobs that don't require a degree. You'll say graduates earn more on average. They do, and averages include the surgeons. If you need the degree to be a doctor or an engineer, go. If you don't know why you're going, don't. Learn a trade, start a business, get to work. Here's the test. Can you name the job this degree buys before you borrow for it? Education is priceless. College just charges like it is.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Plenty of students pay for college and never get the degree. That's the worst deal there is: the debt without the diploma.

    The National Center for Education Statistics reports that roughly six in ten first-time, full-time students at four-year institutions earn a bachelor's degree within six years, meaning more than a third do not.

  2. Even the graduates often end up in jobs that never needed the degree they paid for.

    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's tracking of recent college graduates finds roughly four in ten working in jobs that typically don't require a degree.

  3. The debt is real and it follows people for years. A decision that big deserves honest math, not a slogan.

    Federal Student Aid data show the federal student loan portfolio is over one and a half trillion dollars.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: On average, college graduates earn much more and face lower unemployment than people with only a high school diploma, so college pays off.

Nate: An average isn't a promise. It lumps surgeons and engineers in with dropouts and graduates pouring coffee. The honest question isn't whether college pays on average. It's whether this degree, at this price, pays for you. For most people, a trade, a business or a job beats four years of debt.

What he grants the other side

On average, bachelor's degree holders earn more than people with only a high school diploma.

The lines

Sources

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Education pays: Earnings and unemployment rates by educational attainment (2024)
  2. National Center for Education Statistics, Condition of Education: Undergraduate Retention and Graduation Rates (2024)
  3. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates (2024)
  4. U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, Federal Student Loan Portfolio data (2024)

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