For decades, the “experts” in Washington and the guidance counselors in every high school sold us the same expensive story: if you want a good life, you must go to college. They told us that a university degree was the golden ticket, and that manual labor was a consolation prize for people who couldn’t cut it in the classroom. They were wrong. And now, the market is finally proving it.
We are witnessing a massive shift in the American economy, but you won’t hear the university presidents talking about it. While the “elites” argue about student loan forgiveness, a new generation—Gen Z—is looking at the receipts and realizing the math doesn’t add up. They are rejecting the debt-trap of the four-year degree and picking up toolbelts instead. This isn’t just a trend; it is a market correction against a bloated, centralized education system that charges premium prices for a defective product.
The Degree is Losing Its Value
A Deocrat believes in checking the results, not just listening to the sales pitch. For years, universities hiked tuition prices while hiring armies of administrators, all while the actual value of a degree plummeted. Employers have finally noticed. According to recent reports, nearly one in three companies have dropped college degree requirements for their job openings.
Why? Because businesses run on profit, not prestige. They have realized that a piece of paper from a liberal arts college doesn’t guarantee a worker has any useful skills. Big corporations like Walmart, IBM, and Delta Airlines are stripping away the “paper ceiling” because they need people who can actually do the work. They are prioritizing skills-based hiring over credential-based hiring. In the real world, results matter more than pedigree.
Enter the “Toolbelt Generation”
While the media focuses on political drama, Gen Z is quietly making a pragmatic financial decision. They are flocking to vocational schools and apprenticeship programs. Enrollments in vocational-focused community colleges rose 16% last year alone. This generation is being dubbed the “Toolbelt Generation,” and they are proving to be the smartest investors in the room.
Consider the trade-off. You can spend four years accumulating $100,000 in debt to study theories that might land you a barista job. Or, you can spend a fraction of that time and money learning to weld, plumb, or repair HVAC systems—jobs that often pay six-figure salaries and cannot be outsourced to a computer or overseas. This is the Deocrat ideal: decentralized skills that you own, which give you leverage in the marketplace.
Rebranding the Blue Collar
The cultural stigma against trade work was always a lie designed to keep the university tuition flowing. Now, that stigma is eroding. Young workers are proudly posting about their trade jobs on TikTok and Instagram, showing off their paychecks and their freedom from crushing debt. They aren’t calling themselves “laborers”; they are “technologists” of the physical world.
This terrifies the centralized education establishment. If young people realize they can succeed without kissing the ring of higher education, the universities lose their power—and their revenue. The “Toolbelt Generation” is exposing the college degree for what it has become for too many people: an overpriced luxury item rather than a necessity.
Follow the Money, Not the Hype
The lesson here is simple: ignore the drama and look at the ledger. The government and universities want you to believe that the only path to dignity is through their institutions. But the receipts show otherwise. The smartest route today is often the one that keeps you out of debt and gets you into the workforce faster.
We don’t need more bureaucrats with diplomas on their walls. We need people who can build, fix, and create. The market is correcting itself, and power is shifting back to the people who actually know how things work. That is a win for the community, and a loss for the gatekeepers.
Bibliography
- Belkin, Douglas. “How Gen Z Is Becoming the Toolbelt Generation.” The Wall Street Journal, 1 Apr. 2024, www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/gen-z-trades-jobs-plumbing-welding-a76b5e43.
- Cerullo, Megan. “1 in 3 Companies Have Dropped College Degree Requirements.” CBS News, 19 Feb. 2024, www.cbsnews.com/news/college-degree-job-requirement/.