There's a growing number of young people who are finding that, for them, college was probably was probably a huge mistake-- a 40k, 60k, or 80k mistake.

Of course, there's a stigma associated with not going to college, and it's stigma that touches everywhere. I know a few farmers with that own more than a square mile of land and have no college education. When you consider all the knowledge, work ethic, etc a farmer that's keeping a farm of that size running has, you know he could easily have done college, yet, he's still going to feel uncomfortable around people who are far far less wealthy and successful but more formally educated.

With college, you have a serious chicken-egg thing: there are very few "Ernie"s out there. Pretty much everyone is pressured into being a Bill, so, it seems, the only people not going to college these days are the types who probably couldn't succeed there, --let's call them Balboas, since they'd be as dumb as rocks-- unlike a few decades ago when you had smart, hard-working self starters for which college would have been fluff. And I think Bill is always going to beat Balboa unless it's a street fight. In the case of Ernie, he's going to go through life with everyone thinking he's a Balboa, which is not pleasant. To make matters worse, there's a lot of Balboas going to college too. If you send 3 Bills to college and give the college 6k in subsidies, that's 2k per bill. Send 3 bills and 2 Balboas, whoops, now you're spending 1.2k per student average. But, Balboas cost more than Bills, yes? Remedial classes, extra years, etc. So, instead of getting a 2k subsidy, it's likely all those Bills are paying an extra 1k in tuition to subsidize the Balboas in class.