[caseysoftware]

Outside of certain fields - law, medicine, engineering - getting a degree is becoming a pure market signal.

Get a degree from [top tier school] and it probably can be any degree because the school itself is a filter that gets "the best" however they define it. Get a degree from [2nd tier or worse school] and it better be something that demonstrates academic or intellectual rigor.

But outside of a degree, another market signal is relevant experience. Considering the teenage and young adult unemployment rate, that is harder and harder to get.. which means they start their professional/productive years that much later, which means responsible adulthood comes later, which means family, house, etc, etc comes that much later.

Eventually (already?) it can put an entire area, city, region, or generation on a lower trajectory for their lives, negatively affecting everyone.

That is what concerns me.