Do Americans Expect Too Much From a College Degree? - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

In times like these, data points get wielded like cudgels.

Student-loan debt tops $1-trillion. As many as half of recent graduates are out of work, earn trifling wages, or have jobs that don’t require college degrees. Clearly, such numbers suggest, college isn’t worthwhile.

Image: Social Science Research Council Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum track the same Class of 2009 students they studied in their 2011 book, "Academically Adrift," in a new work that examines that cohort’s success—or lack of it—after college.