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Ben Shapiro’s recent commentary asking whether Gen Z should still go to college cuts to the chase: higher education used to be about forming minds, learning a trade, and creating responsible citizens, but now too many young Americans are treated as tuition dollars to be shaped into political soldiers. Shapiro lays out a blunt case that the return on investment for a four-year liberal arts degree has eroded and that the cultural mission of colleges has skewed away from education toward ideology. Conservatives should pay attention when one of our prominent voices warns that the system is failing the very people it claims to serve.
The facts back him up: enrollment is falling and millions of students are walking into a system that often saddles them with crippling debt and little practical skill to show for it, a generational tragedy that undercuts the American Dream. Young men and women are increasingly opting out of the traditional college pipeline because the price is too high and the payoff too uncertain. This is not abstract theory — it’s a real economic and cultural shift that proves the current model is broken and demands urgent conservative reform.
Worse still, universities have become hotspots for ideological conformity and credential inflation, where a bachelor’s degree is applauded even when it teaches little real knowledge or practical competence. Conservatives have watched for years as academic institutions prioritized identity politics and administrative bloat over basic instruction, producing graduates who are culturally trained but poorly prepared for productive work. That credentialing racket squeezes working-class Americans and warps hiring practices to favor degree-holding signaling over actual ability.
Shapiro and other sensible thinkers argue the obvious solution: restore vocational pathways, expand apprenticeships, and stop treating a college diploma as a ticket to life unless it’s actually tied to useful skills. There’s a growing chorus saying we should dismantle unnecessary credential barriers and let employers hire for talent and grit rather than alma mater prestige. Conservatives should push this hard — it’s both pro-worker and pro-merit, and it’ll free young people from needless debt and ideological captivity.
This fight isn’t academic; it’s about the future of families, communities, and honest work. Parents must stop buying the lie that every child needs a four-year degree at any cost, and business leaders must stop reinforcing the college-only gatekeeping that benefits elites more than ordinary Americans. We should champion trade schools, internships, and real-world training that restore dignity to work and give young people a clear route to prosperity without surrendering their future to woke curricula.
Hardworking Americans know what colleges once stood for — excellence, character, and the pursuit of truth — and it’s time to demand those values again. Reclaiming higher education means cutting the political dead weight, returning to core subjects and skills, and rebuilding institutions that serve students, not leftist agendas. If conservatives lead on this, we can give Gen Z something real: opportunity, responsibility, and a chance to build a life without debt and without being indoctrinated.
