Thought: Show Me the ROITrend: Even STEM Can't Save YouTool: The $7.5K Alternative

Walk into a bank and ask for $100,000. They'll want to know what you plan to do with it. What's the payback period? How long until you earn it back? Compared to what alternatives?

Walk into a student loan office and ask for the same amount. They hand it over - no questions asked.

I keep hearing the same logic: "I need the degree because I need the job, and degrees get higher-paying jobs, therefore it's worth it."

That might be true on average. But the averages are hiding something. If you ask the follow-up questions - what job are you actually trying to get, and could you get it without the degree? - most people don't know the answer to either one.

Why would you take out a loan to get a job you can't define, that may not require the credential you're paying for?

- Isaac

This segment was adapted from Isaac's recent appearance on the Minimalists podcast. 

Watch the clip / Watch the full episode 

Contrary to the long-running joke about humanities majors who can't find work, Rob Henderson flagged new data that flips the script: the fields once considered bulletproof - computer science, engineering, physics - now have some of the highest unemployment rates among recent college graduates.

Meanwhile, 42.5% of all recent graduates are underemployed, working jobs that never required their degree in the first place. The Minneapolis Fed quietly confirmed what anyone paying attention already suspected: the college wage premium peaked around 2000 and has been flat for over two decades. Tuition went up 40%. The payoff didn't.

Before he was running OpenEd, Isaac spent years helping young people find real mentorship, real work, and a path into careers that didn't require waiting four years and going six figures into debt. The program he built to do it - Praxis - has since been acquired by our friends at Libertas Network, who relaunched it as an 8-month career accelerator: six weeks of incubation followed by six months of hands-on training and job placement.

The quick math:

They just added an entrepreneurship track for participants who'd rather start something than join something. To this day, a Praxis credential gets priority in our own hiring at OpenEd - because it tells us more about a candidate's initiative and original thinking than any diploma ever could.

Learn more

That's all for today.

- Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)

P.S. If this newsletter leaves you feeling uncertain about your teen's future, we've got a guide for that: Apprenticeships, CTE, and Real-World Learning for Teens.