So you’re at a dinner party, and someone starts talking about what a waste college is. Want a list of succinct talking points to counter that narrative? We did, too. We asked for some tips from Jennie Brand, UCLA professor of sociology, co-director of the UCLA Center for Social Statistics, and author of the book Overcoming the Odds: The Benefits of Completing College for Unlikely Graduates.
“College is too expensive.”
You say: “It is expensive. And I think that's a collective shortcoming — we’re not supporting public institutions as much as we should. But while we should collectively commit to lowering the costs, the calculations we do to compare how much you invest in university education over decades versus the economic rewards show that, on the individual level, it pays off in the long term.”
“College admission is too biased and difficult.”
You say: “There are a lot of colleges in this country, and admissions is a very difficult process. I think most universities do their best to admit students fairly, but there are always ways to improve the process. That said, there are a lot of paths to obtaining a four-year degree, especially in the state of California, where you can start at a community or junior college. I also think we’re not investing as much as we should in building new universities; at a time when there’s increasing demand, we should be expanding the options available for students.”
“College wastes your time on useless courses.”
You say: “College is a transformative process in many ways. Many students ask an advisor, ‘What is this course going to do for me?’ The response is always that it's going to do things you may not recognize — your brain is a muscle, and so the more you’re expanding and working it, there's going to be a benefit. Sometimes courses that seem disconnected from what you perceive as your path are the ones that expand your perception or impact you the most.
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“College no longer guarantees a good job.”
You say: “The labor market for workers who do not have college degrees has gotten worse, so, in general, the returns of a college education have increased. Sometimes when people say that a college education is not paying off the same way it used to, they’re comparing workers in different college-educated cohorts and saying that their professional trajectories aren’t the same. That's not really what the benefit of a college degree is — it’s looking at the alternative that you would be doing in the absence of that degree. Research tells us empirically that the return on a college education is better now than it ever was. But even if it were the same or not as good, there’s still a return that you won’t get by not going to college.”
“It’s smarter/cheaper/more lucrative to go into a trade instead of college.”
You say: “Not everybody has to go to college; it’s not the right choice for every single person. Some people have different paths and career goals. But to explore this argument, you have to look at the full, long-term career trajectory. Someone might get a higher-paying job more quickly from a trade, but what’s the long-term wage projection, and will it increase in the same way that the return on college increases? There is a very steep wage profile for college-educated workers; the wage profilefor less-educated workers tends to be less steep.”
“College indoctrinates students with liberal propaganda and produces untrustworthy research.”
You say: “Higher education values critical thinking and scientific, research-based evidence — that’s not liberal indoctrination. Critical thought can lead to looking closely at firmly held beliefs and seeing whether they hold up, but I don't think there's evidence that college causes people to change their belief system that strongly. College can be transformative in different ways, but it’s not an indoctrination machine. Rather, it’s a commitment to evidence, science and critical thought.”
Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Winter 2026 issue.
