Colleges Face a Reckoning: Is a Degree Really Necessary?
23rd October 2025
The New York Times, paper of record for the Crust.
n the outskirts of Wyoming’s capital, two advertisements about a minute apart offered starkly different paths.
A nonprofit group’s billboard promoted a way to earn money for college. The other, from Walmart, dangled pay exceeding $30 an hour.
The dueling choices underscored a fundamental tension for the nation’s teenagers and adults alike, one that has become vivid in the Trump era: Is college something all Americans need?
For decades, it was close to an article of faith among education leaders, scholars and politicians, regardless of political ideology, that most people should go to college. But in many places, most jobs do not require college degrees, and doubts over the value of higher education have metastasized as student debt has soared and the ranks of dropouts have grown.College has become a sharp dividing line in American life, and the disconnect between higher education’s promises and its sometimes-frustrating reality has helped fuel a conservative movement to upend academia. Over the last decade, though, nearly every state tried to get more people to earn a certificate or a degree after high school.
More to the point, not everybody is capable of doing college work. Most scientific studies support the notion that college work requires an IQ of at least 110, which is above average, so realistically more than half of Americans can’t cope with college.