Study after study has demonstrated that the more educated that you are the higher your salary will be, but like most statistics, there are deceptions within this truism. For instance, if you live in a small little rural town, and either don't have the ambition or desire to ever leave there, for whatever reason, does it avail you of anything to incur amassive amount of debt, and time spent, to attend a given college to get a degree that will never be actually utilized? Further, consider people that have not demonstrated academic success at the high school level or the maturity or the study habits or the intelligence to actually take on successfully college materials, should these people even be applying to college? Additionally, consider the fact that in all likelihood that the most successful college graduates were going to be successful whether they attended a college or not, by virtue of the fact, that they are focused, perceptive, dedicated, responsible, prepared and self-motivated. The bottom line is not everybody has the right stuff to attend college and further that college is not free--in fact, college can be quite expensive and time consuming.
In June 2014, the Economist reported that: "U.S. student loan debt exceeded $1.2 trillion, with over 7 million debtors in default." Further, as reported by the Huffingtonpost.com, "Fewer than half of all students who entered college in 2007 finished school where they started, and almost a third are no longer taking classes toward a degree anywhere." This effectively means that a significant portion of students have attended college but failed to complete their college studies, so they are out both time and money, to which, even bankruptcy, will not discharged these debts which can easily be at $25,000, $50,000, or even more.
Then too there is the problem of Bachelor's degrees, of which, the whole purpose, one would think of receiving the Bachelor's degree, is to find gainful employment using that degree, but in fact, as reported by careerbuilder.com, "Nearly half (47 percent) of college-educated workers said their first job after college was not related to their college major." This doesn't mean that the Bachelor's degree was of no value, what it does indicate is that their given major had little relevancy to the job that they found employment at, indicating that colleges and employment opportunities appear to be significantly out of sync. While there is something to be said for pursuing the major of your desire or preference; from a practical level that should also mean that remunerative positions that necessitate that major should also be widely available.
Another mark against the current drive for all to get educated at colleges is the fact that even though there never has been so many with advanced degrees, the GDP in America as a whole over the last decade has been anemic. As reported by cnsnews.com, as of February 26, 2016, "The United States has now gone a record 10 straight years without 3 percent growth in real Gross Domestic Product." This would seem to strongly indicate that despite what all the administration big hats wish to propagandize, more educational achievement, does not appear to be the fundamental key to higher GDP growth. Instead, it would be reasonable to conclude that if students take classes in college, that often don't teach them anything of practical real world value and purpose, but are instead frequently empty of any actual utility value but cost these students real money, you will stagnate growth to the detriment of America as a whole.
The very worst part of the structure of today's higher education, though, is the sticking of massive debt onto the shoulders of young students that have been sold a bag of goods much akin to yesterday's huckster selling elixir that supposedly would cure most every human ailment that you could possibly imagine. Today's college experience has degenerated and degraded itself far too often into a scam of epic proportions, and instead of that American dream become closer for the millennial generation it is instead getting pushed out further; with census.gov reporting that the home ownership rate by age of householder for those under 35 years of age for the 4th quarter of 2015 stood at 34.7%, the second lowest quarterly rate from 1994 to year ending 2015, with only the 1st quarter of 2015 at 34.6% being even lower, with all this occurring in an era of historically low mortgage interest rates.