For decades, Pakistani parents believed in a simple promise: educate your children and their future will be better than yours.

It was the foundation of the middle-class dream. Parents sacrificed their comfort, delayed their own wishes, sold assets, worked extra hours and spent a major part of their earnings because education was considered the safest investment. A degree was not just a piece of paper. It was viewed as a guarantee – a respectable job, a stable income, a house, a car and eventually financial independence.

For an earlier generation, this formula largely worked.

Education remains one of the strongest drivers of social mobility. But we must update our understanding of what education means.

Education remains one of the strongest drivers of social mobility. But we must update our understanding of what education means.

A young professional entering the workforce could slowly build a life. Salaries were modest, but expectations were realistic. Savings gradually turned into a plot. A plot became a house. A stable career created retirement security. The journey was not easy, but the destination felt achievable.

Today, the same formula is breaking.

Pakistan is producing perhaps the most educated generation in its history, but many young people are discovering a painful reality: education alone no longer guarantees economic progress.

They may graduate with more qualifications than their parents, but many may struggle to accumulate the assets their parents created with fewer degrees.

The next generation may inherit certificates, not property.

This is not because young people lack ambition. They are more connected, more informed and have access to more knowledge than any generation before them. The problem is that the economic equation around them has changed.

The cost of building a life has increased much faster than the income available to build it.

Pakistan has one of the youngest populations in the world, with around two-thirds of citizens below the age of 30. On paper, this should be the country’s greatest advantage. Economists call it a demographic dividend – a period when a young workforce drives........

© Daily Times