There is also the cost to benefit ratio. Even IF you can get a job in your chosen field, the cost of the education to get there and the increasing pace of industrial change as required knowledge grows and changes can make your degree not really worth the effort. While I certainly don’t know for sure, it could be conceivable that the world might not even miss half of collage graduates produced today. And most people could make a living with a “simpler and more focused” technical education.

The world will always need carpenters, plumbers, electricians, accountants, and garbage collectors. And perhaps not so many people with a Master’s degree in library sciences or maybe with the advent of AI, even human programmers.