I don't doubt there is some truth in this. Certainly if an employer can choose between a college grad and a high school grad for the same job / pay they may feel they are getting a better 'deal' with the college grad.

That the population of folks with degrees has less unemployment than the set of folks who don't have degrees has been true at least since the 50's according to the Census data. (and they have nifty new APIs to access it but alas they are down at the moment). What is less well understood are the roots of this correlation.

At one time people assumed that folks with college degrees had higher IQs or higher socioeconomic status, but later studies have not born out that hypothesis. There is something different about someone who decides to finish a college degree, in the general case, than someone who either pursues no college, or starts college and drops out.

There are of course anecdotes of college drop out successes and college graduate failures, but as a population group they seem more employable overall.

So far from the data I've seen it seems there is an aspect of this question which is not yet well quantified.

Do you have sources or is this pure speculation?

I live in a foreign country but when I come home to the USA to visit, I still see mostly teenagers working at fast food restaurants.

The thing is, most managers at minimum wage jobs wouldn't want to hire a college graduate. They would feel threatened since they probably don't have a degree themselves.

I have not really seen this attitude, and I've worked a few shitty jobs post education. (I get a perverse satisfaction from shifting beer barrels)

The types of jobs traditionally filled by those with high school educations disappeared disproportionately (manufacturing, construction). i.e. high school educated people are increasingly useless to our economy. This means two things: firstly non-college prep high school curriculum is failing to prepare citizens for any non-college niche of our economy. Secondly, they face higher competition for the remaining non-skilled jobs.

Also a net negative effect on your life: unemployment.

> high school educated people are increasingly useless to our economy.

That seems like a silly statement. The jobs that most college graduates are fighting for were once, and often still are, done quite successfully by high school educated people. It is not that education matters in the workplace, it is just that the demand for those jobs has kept people trying to increasingly outdo everyone else in order to get the job. Education has been an easy way to do that.

Education doubly serves as an easy filter. You have probably heard your parents say something like "in my day you only needed high school." That is because there were less high school graduates during that time. If you threw away the resumes without high school, you could pare them down to manageable levels. In the meantime there was a big push to see more high school educated people. Suddenly, filtering by high school yielded too many results. Degrees were still relatively rare, so applying that logic allowed the filter to work again. But then the big push for college education started...

53% of recent college graduates are underemployed or jobless[1]. This seems to indicate that having a bachelors is not even enough anymore. "Everyone" has a bachelors degree these days, so why hire one of them when you can hire someone who has a masters degree?

The economy would do just fine if we had more high school (or less) educated people, but we would have to find some other filter, like gender, race, or religion and we have already decided that no company may filter based on those attributes. That leaves the infinite arms race of education where it is still socially acceptable to consider those without said education "stupid" and unfit to do the job.

[1] http://blog.fora.tv/2012/04/the-new-53-unemployed-college-gr...

College-educated people being hired for jobs that high-school educated people used to do is only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that those jobs are disappearing. That was the major point of the research article that this is report is based on. So, it's all fine and dandy for college-educated people to whine that they're only able to find jobs for which they are over-qualified, but high-school educated people face both increased competition from college-educated people and fewer opportunities (even if college-educated people were not encroaching) and can't find jobs at all.

Keep in mind that 70,000,000 high school graduates in the USA are employed, while only 35,000,000 college gradates are employed. High school educated people have a long way to go before they are completely marginalized by college graduates. You make it sound like there are just a handful of high school educated people hanging on to the last jobs by the skin of their teeth, which couldn't be further from the truth.

I feel it is also important to note that the college educated gains made in this study were by people aged 25 or above. Those below that age are actually more employed with just a high school education for the first time. We can surmise from that data that experience is what has become important in the recession, which is also backed by my anecdotal experience. It is just that a degree actually did matter a decade ago, which left those without a degree lacking in the necessary experience today.

>If you're in debt out the wazoo to work at a minimum wage job, then no, the college degree is probably having a net negative effect on your life

Usually it is the reverse:

If you're in debt out the wazoo due to a college degree and forced to work a minimum wage [low wage] job, then college is having a negative effect on your life...