No one seems to ask the right questions. The debate should not be "college or not". It should be:

What is your major?
What do you plan to do with it?
Do you need college for that?
If you are applying for student loans, will your degree allow you to pay it back?

I teach what Dr. Stadler would have taught today, but I teach in a way that Galt, Danneskjold, and d'Anconia would have appreciated. Yes, I paid for this advertising. Value for value exchange, after all.

Me dino me am me went to college on GI Bill after being drafted. Me am majored in Journalism. Topped dat off taking photography course plus public relations.
Only offered two jobs me could find after graduating. One was editing. Blaugh! Me wanted to interview people, take photos and most of all to write. Not to proof read what real reporters done wrote. As you kin see. Me great when done writing.
So me started to write for dinky paper. Idea wuz to gain experience and to work me way up.
Long story short it took 5 years (of Jimmy Carter malaise) during the Seventies to get the attention of The Montgomery Advertiser because me really good writing police/crime stories. Montgomery dat is capital of Alabamy. Yep it is.
Managing editor looks me in me eye when he says and I quote, "We're having a hiring freeze right now. I PROMISE you that when it is over, you'll be working for us as our police beat reporter. Whoopie me be thinking driving back to where I'm gonna live for two more years.
Why? Me not going into the "good ole' boy" crap twixt Bama editors dat wuz holding me back, I called a young lady I knew that set type at the Advertiser. She told me dat the hiring freeze had ended and the managing editor hired some out of state dude fresh out of college for a lot less money than what I had been PROMISED. Lady added that the desk editor got mad at the managing editor over dat. So me knows just who did dat
I ALSO SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL!
Long story shorter~~me dino joined the Alabama Department Of Corrections three years later. Enjoying a dang good retirement now.
Two sons never went to college and are making more money than I ever did. Same goes for a daughter who married a good earner. Daughter was a wildcat but she done wised up.

There is nothing that the wrong philosophy can't screw up. And that includes colleges under postmodernism. All very insightful college and a near landslide for giving college the finger.

I sometimes think we are living through the decline and fall of the united States of America but the book will not be written and published for a hundred years from today.

From my experience only, consulting for several private universities, colleges are sites for brainwashing young minds against individual liberty and for censorship.
Curriculum is manipulated to deliver drones who cannot think rationally and are enslaved to the banking cartel that creates the enslaving loans from nothing.
Many degrees are less than worthless.
They waste scarce resources and destroy promising young minds.
Tuition at the university that I attended has increased at FIVE TIMES the inflation rate since I attended there.

Only if you need the degree for your planned occupation. Otherwise become a self taught person as everything is freely available online to cover whatever you are interested in.

My life experience in corporate America indicates a mediocre producer (or non-producer) with a degree will always get paid more and positioned better than a high producer without one. When belt tightening begins usually the non-credentialed are first to go regardless of skill level. It's built into the culture and makes the "Peter Principle" work. I've had the pleasure to work with credentialed people who are brilliant and worth every penny, but the dull are just as prevalent and aren't worth two cents, but survive because they got that paper.

I would say, depending on the field of study, mostly college degrees are worth it.

Edit add side story: Thomas Edison never went to college, but was awarded honorary degrees from several ivy league schools. He accepted them graciously, but before he died he said they had to do that because they couldn't stand the idea that anyone could do what I did without their pieces of paper.

No. Learn more from YouTube and ChatGPT and a lot less expensive

My degree in the 1990s opened doors for me.
Glad I got it. I wish I had learned more about running a business.

My daughter was fully paid to go to University. And the degradation of the degrees and the process was already evident. The books are horrible (referring to capitalism as exploitation, like the old Soviets used to teach).

If I had a child today. There is NO CHANCE I'd let them go to school, unless it was fully paid like my daughter had (multiple scholarships). EVEN THEN.

What I would do. I would help them figure out what they love doing, and educate them at home the best I could + YT for the various online courses like Physics, Math, etc. Teach them the basics of being physically fit, avoiding drugs, alcohol, junk food.

Have them read across a spectrum of business books. Teach them how to set goals and use SYSTEMS to accomplish all of their goals. Systems are more important and impactful than goals, but I find having decent goals can be additionally motivating for some.

Teach them about Money vs. Currency. Contracts, and residual income.

But unless it's free, the modern university system is not worth much. You would have to pay to undo the negative programming.

Even my daughter was bathed with this crap, knowing our beliefs were quite different... It has an effect to be told, constantly, that "Liberal Views" are kinder/gentler. Without explaining that "Softness today creates hardships tomorrow". As she matured more after school, the wheels got clicking better again...