(Note: This topic is so important, and fast-moving, that I decided to return to, and significantly update, it here — two and half years after I last addressed it: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/is-it-still-worth-going-to-college/)

Is it still worth going to college?

For youngsters today (Gen Z and Gen Alpha), the AI revolution is scary given its “intellectual” capabilities. Computer programmers, financial service workers, and other similar white-collar wannabees are finding it difficult to gain entry-level jobs. As a result, a lot of young people are skipping college and jumping straight into blue collar training: trades like plumbing, electrical work, construction, and all sorts of not so simple hands-on jobs.

Right now, in my post-retirement work as a half-time Professor of Communications (Peres Academic Center, Rehovot), my students face this dilemma and turn to me for advice. Here’s what I tell them – and it’s not straightforward.

First, college is expensive. In America, insanely so; in Israel, where salaries overall are significantly lower, private college tuition is far cheaper but still relatively “expensive”: around 30,000 shekels a year (a B.A. is three intensive years in Israel; four less concentrated years in most overseas countries; tuition at Israel’s public universities are very low – about $4000 a year!). On the other hand (pun intended), blue collar training programs are shorter, cheaper, and the trainee starts........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)