Even though the degree doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the job.

And then they make getting the degree so expensive you have to spend the rest of your life paying off the student loans.

I spent eight years in college getting 3 college degrees (astronomy, math, geography), spread out over a total of 13 years (I did a hitch in the Navy and worked overseas for a year). And the only thing I ever needed and used on the job was how to program in Fortran, which took me only one course lasting one semester--and which I could have picked up in a tech school or by reading about it at the public library. I don't regret my time in college, I learned a lot of neat stuff, got to hang out with a lot of smart people, and learned a lot of stuff that was outside my field. Its called an education. And it was cheap; I went to a State University, got a little help from my family, worked construction in the summers, and GI Bill. I graduated totally broke, but debt-free, with a Master's in 1977. It was possible back then.

I once had one of my bosses tell me "For the vast majority of jobs, you don't really need any specialized college training. You pick up the skills you need on the job. The degree only demonstrates you are willing to work hard, put up with bullshit, and postpone expectations for a few years."

Fortunately, I was lucky. My minimal training in programming made it easy for me to get my foot in the door, I got a job as a scientific/engineering programmer in a shop where about half my colleagues had degrees in stuff like Business, French, Pharmacy Science, and other non-STEM fields. They had picked up programming on the job, or as a sideline or hobby. Today, that wouldn't be possible, the degree would be used as a filter to keep out the non-degreed.

I was able to use my job experience to leverage from one job to another--navigation, astrometry, photogrammetry, computer graphics, remote sensing, image processing, Geographic Information Systems, City Planning--all based on the ability to write code in one simple computer language. By the time Fortran was obsolete, I was a fucking manager, and didn't need to know anything at all.

I feel sorry for the kids coming up the corporate ladder now. I know I wouldn't be able to compete in today's elitist business environment.