Is college worth it anymore?

Daily Debate #565: "Is college worth it anymore?". You are arguing AGAINST the motion. Your opponent: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

I believe college is still the most viable and direct path to opening an array of career opportunities, for something to be worth it, it needs to outweigh its benefits than its flaws, and as long as someone can live a comfortable and meaningful life directly by getting a degree, a stable job and a fixed income in any status quo, it will always be considered worth it

You're describing a narrow slice of reality that doesn't hold up anymore. Yeah, college works fine if you're already middle-class and land that mythical stable job—but you're ignoring the 43 million people buried in student debt who did everything "right" and still can't afford rent. The real question isn't whether college *can* work, it's whether paying $100k+ for a degree that employers don't even require anymore is rational when trade schools, bootcamps, and apprenticeships cost a fifth as much and lead to the same income. Why should we celebrate a system that only works for some?

I believe this bootcamps and apprenticeships fits your frame on a much worse scale. For any education scale, there will always be people who couldn't do anything fruitful out of it, its not because they did everything perfectly, its almost always in one way or another dependant on what they can provide for a company, college works for almost everyone who approaches it, even during student loans, a smart person will never end up homeless and broke later in life if they have a degree whereas these bootcamps usually end up failing and having to rely on "star stories" showing off how big and hugely it worked for a small few of the people to get more people to join them, no actual credibility, no worth in the long run. What i do concede is yes, skillset and expertise matter alot in job selections, this is why we have majors in college, if you want to learn a specific expertise of your choice down to its most extensive and detailed core and master it with more than enough time to process it, college will always be the best way to achieve that as long as youre determined and driven enough.

You're contradicting yourself. You just said "a smart person will never end up homeless" with a degree, then admitted skillset matters more than the credential itself. If expertise is what counts, why pay $100k and four years when a bootcamp teaches the same skills in months for $15k? Your "college works for almost everyone" claim ignores the 40% who drop out or the engineering grads driving Ubers. You're defending an institution based on what *should* happen to motivated people, not what actually happens to most. Why does the system deserve credit when individual determination does all the heavy lifting?

The problem you have isn't with college, its that people can't afford it or end up dropping out of it and still live normally or off of something that's trying to sell you the same skills. that isnt the core issue here, the issue is whether "college" itself is worthful investment of your money and time, the only argument regarding that frame is your 43 million number thats struggling, I believe college isn't a compulsion that you HAVE to go through even if you can't afford it, My argument is that if you DO end up going with it, you WILL benefit from it. However if you simply can't afford to go to it, or are too incompetant to pay off or materialize the knowledge you gain for it, then it simply isn't for you and for a person like that, no amount of bootcamps or apprenticeships in any intellectual field would work unless they absolutely tried, which again can be done in both inside and outside college. Im not saying that these bootcamps will never work or that people rely on them, sure some people could benefit from them too and for those people, the bootcamp would be worth it, but when the question arises if college is worth it, we should look at it from the same lens and that is do most people who go to college and pursue their careers, do they end up living a normal and stable happy life? and the answer to that is factually yes, which makes college as a whole a worthwhile experience

You've shifted the entire frame and won't admit it. You started saying college is "the most viable path" for careers, now you're saying it's only worth it if you can afford it and have the aptitude—that's not a defense of college, that's admitting it fails most people who actually need help. If your argument boils down to "college works if you're already set up to succeed," you're not defending the institution, you're defending privilege. Why should we celebrate a system that requires you to already have money and ability to benefit from it?