But that's the beauty of people identifying a career and going back to school later with a goal in mind. I went back to school at 27. Going to college changed my life, but that's because I approached it like a job. I didn't go to a school like UofO or OSU. I went to PSU where there's nothing to do but go to class.
I know plenty of people with college educations who are working dead end jobs. My cousin went to an expensive private university in California, got a degree in English lit and then came back to Portland to work at Fred Meyer for years.
There's a massive disconnect between the reality of college and what we tell our kids. They're told it's this fun time to explore new things and enjoy themselves, all while they're racking up a ton of crippling debt that they can't clear with bankruptcy. I totally get it. There are classes that I thoroughly enjoyed while I was there. I love history and I really enjoyed taking history classes, but there's really only so many careers that you can go for if you major in history, and most of them require more than a 4 year degree.
Really we should be finding an alternative for kids to serve the country that isn't the military but provides something similar to the GI Bill. Let kids go work for 4-5 years doing something we need as a society, and then provide them with a nearly free education. That gives them time to figure out what they want to do and an opportunity to grow as people before they go to school.
So many kids waste their time at college. They drop out while still accruing debt. They pick a degree that doesn't help them find a job. Some of them make massive mistakes because they can't handle the culture on a campus. I just think we need to do a better job preparing our kids for this huge decision. We don't hand out massive car loans to kids without credit. We don't hand out massive mortgages to kids without a steady income and good credit.... but we hand out huge student loans to kids who are 18 and have no credit, no income, and don't know what they're going to do in life to pay it back. It's absurd.