Gen Z and millennials alike have been writing off their degree as worthless. And it’s not hard to see why: Entry-level corporate jobs have been slashed, promotions are “peanuts”, and the new wave of young millionaires are trade workers turned business owners and AI entrepreneurs.
But actually, graduates are still the least likely to be unemployed right now.
Fresh data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that among workers aged 25 and over, people with a bachelor’s degree have the lowest unemployment rate of any education group.
In fact, despite a third of graduates slamming their degrees as a waste of money and not financially worth it, the numbers show a pretty blunt reality: The more educated you are, the more likely you are to be in work.
Those without a high school diploma face the highest risk of being out of work, with jobless rates more than twice those of college grads, while everyone else falls somewhere in between.
And this isn’t a blip. Back in 2019, before the pandemic (and ChatGPT) reshaped the job market for good, college grads also sat at the bottom of the unemployment chart—and the same was true even 20 years ago.
In 2006, when the data starts, unemployment for people without a high school diploma sat at 6.9%, compared with 2.2% for college grads, and in early 2026, it’s still 6.4% versus roughly 2.8%.
In other words, even as the economy and workplace have transformed, one thing has stayed stubbornly consistent: having a degree still puts you at the safest end of the unemployment chart.
Degrees are losing their shine—but not their edge
For all the backlash, a degree is still the safest way to get your foot in the door in your 20s. It won’t guarantee a six-figure salary or a fast track to the C‑suite, but the data shows it still makes it easier to land on your feet—and stay there.
What has changed is how that advantage feels. On paper, graduates are still better protected against unemployment; in practice, many of them feel stuck in underpaid roles, squeezed by rent and student loans, and watching people without degrees build strong careers through trades, startups, or side hustles.
In a viral TikTok video, a Gen Zer slammed baby boomers for not understanding the crisis his generation faces: highly educated yet unable to afford the same adulthood milestones that previous cohorts took for granted.
“We need to stop expecting the same damn people who bought a four-bedroom home and a brand-new Cadillac convertible off of a $30,000-a-year salary to understand what it’s like to be working 40-plus hours a week with a master’s degree and still not being able to afford a 400-square-foot studio apartment in bumf-ck Iowa,” Robbie Scott slammed.
“We’re staying in school. We’re going to college. We’ve been working since we were 15, 16 years old…doing everything that y’all told us to do so that we can what? Still be living in our parents’ homes in our late twenties?”
To top it off, they’re also watching tech leaders warn that AI could kill all corporate jobs and create a “huge boom” in blue-collar jobs—thanks to the sudden need for data centers to power the new technology.
But for now, graduates still get hired more and earn more
Although the promise of degrees being a golden ticket to a corner office and a house in the suburbs has undeniably faded, the numbers still make a stubborn case for them.
Bachelor’s degree holders earn about 66% more per week than high school graduates. And if you want the really big paychecks? Research from Ladders, the career site for six-figure jobs, found that degree requirements have the biggest impact on top-tier salaries—and the top jobs paying $200,000 or more overwhelmingly require advanced degrees.
Then there’s what’s happening behind closed doors. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have scrapped degree requirements to be more inclusive—but Goodwill CEO Steve Preston says the reality on the ground looks very different. “The top says we need to do this,” he previously told Fortune, “but when it gets to the hiring professionals, it doesn’t always trickle down.”
In other words, the job ad might no longer ask for a degree. The hiring manager probably still wants one. And the data shows that it hasn’t changed in at least 20 years of records.
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