A lot of higher ed conversation now starts with the same challenge: Is college still worth it?
That sounds like the right debate. It is not.
The more useful question is not whether college has value in the abstract. It is whether the path to that value still makes sense for the people institutions and employers need most.
That distinction matters. A degree can still open doors while the route to earning it becomes harder to justify. Both things can be true at once.
Workers with bachelor’s degrees still earn more, on average, and face lower unemployment than workers with only a high school diploma, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that does not settle the real issue. The real issue is what learners have to spend, delay, or give up in order to access that return.
This argument builds on themes discussed in a recent episode of The Achieve Podcast.
The problem is not just value. It is cost.
ROI is not one number. It has two sides.
On one side is the return: earnings, mobility, access to licensed professions, and long-term opportunity.
On the other side is the cost of getting there: tuition, debt, time out of the workforce, lost wages, and the disruption that comes from trying to fit school into an already full adult life.
That second side is where the pressure has become impossible to ignore.
Too much public debate treats skepticism about college as if it were a rejection of education itself. In many cases, it is a reaction to the economics of the pathway. The problem is not always the destination. It is the price of the route.
The real crisis is the price of waiting
For working adults, time is not neutral.
Four years out of the workforce is not just an academic timeline. It is years of lost income, delayed advancement, childcare strain, and financial risk. Even when students keep working while enrolled, many traditional programs still assume a level of flexibility that adult learners simply do not have.
The tuition side is heavy too. In 2025–26, average published tuition and fees reached $11,950 at public four-year in-state institutions and $45,000 at private nonprofit four-year institutions, based on College Board data.
That pressure is especially clear in professions like teaching. Teaching is socially essential work, but the pathway into it often asks people to absorb major cost before they can access stable professional wages. The median annual pay for elementary school teachers was $62,340 in May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That income matters, but it does not erase the burden of a debt-heavy route.
Recent labor market data adds another layer of tension. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported weaker unemployment and underemployment outcomes for recent college graduates at the end of 2025. That does not mean degrees have stopped mattering. It does mean institutions cannot rely on old assumptions about how easily the payoff will arrive.
Higher ed still undercounts what work teaches
There is another problem underneath the cost issue: many institutions still treat work as something that happens after real learning, rather than as one of the places real learning happens.
That is a costly mistake.
In many professions, the hardest skills are built in live settings. Judgment, communication, decision-making, and professional confidence are not only taught in theory. They are developed in practice.
That does not make classroom learning less important. It means the current sequence often works against the learner. First, pay for school. Then, later, earn the experience. For many adults, that sequence is exactly what breaks the math.
Employers are not asking for lower standards. They are asking for better pathways.
Employers in schools, hospitals, and other care-economy settings already see talented people in their buildings. They see paraprofessionals, aides, support staff, and frontline workers who understand the environment, know the community, and could grow into more advanced roles.
What is missing is not potential. It is a pathway that allows those workers to keep earning while progressing.
That is why work-based pathways matter. When programs reduce time out of the workforce, give structured credit for real work, and align learning with employer demand, the ROI equation changes. The degree does not lose value. It becomes more reachable.
A better ROI model for higher ed
The institutions best positioned for the next decade will not spend all their time defending the old route. They will redesign the path.
That means asking harder operational questions. Where are learners losing money, time, and momentum? Where are adults being forced to choose between earning and advancing? Where could work count toward progression instead of sitting outside the formal pathway?
Those are not side questions anymore. They are central to whether higher ed can keep delivering on its promise.
The real challenge is not proving that college has value. It is building pathways that make that value realistically reachable. If higher ed wants a stronger ROI story, it will need to improve the denominator, not just defend the numerator.
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