College Is a Scam?

When the late Charlie Kirk called universities a scam, many people focused on the messenger instead of the message. Critics dismissed the claim as ideological. Supporters amplified it. Institutions ignored it.

But the word stuck for a reason.

Because of politics, the argument points to something deeply uncomfortable. Not that education has no value, but that the system selling degrees has become detached from outcome, restraint, and accountability.

The Student Loan Experiment That Failed

Student loans were supposed to be an opportunity. A way for capable people, regardless of background, to afford school and move upward. In theory, it was a public good. A bridge between talent and access.

What the system did not account for was what happens when money is guaranteed and repayment is enforced regardless of outcome.

When easy, government backed loan money flooded higher education, price restraint disappeared. Tuition rose because it could. Institutions expanded because they could. Degrees multiplied because demand was no longer tied to value, but to willingness and ability to borrow.

The experiment assumed good faith.It did not account for greed.

Once financing was detached from results, there was no incentive to ask whether the product still made sense.

When Any Degree Becomes Acceptable If Someone Will Pay

Over time, the meaning of a degree eroded.

Programs were no longer evaluated primarily on outcomes, but on enrollment. Fields with little connection to labor demand were elevated to the same status as those requiring specialized training, simply because they could be monetized.

If someone was willing to take out loans, the degree became valid.

Structure existed. Accreditation existed. But standards blurred. Rigor varied wildly. Honest outcome tracking became rare. Degrees were sold not because society needed them, but because the financing made them easy to sell.

This is how you end up in a system where vastly different degrees carry the same debt burden, the same moral expectation of repayment, and the same institutional indifference to whether the promised return ever arrives.

That is not education responding to need.That is a market responding to easy money.

Why the “Scam” Argument Resonates

This is why the scam framing resonated far beyond politics.

A scam is not defined by the absence of value.It is defined by misalignment between promise and reality.

Students were promised mobility.They received an obligation.

They were promised an opportunity.They received permanent risk.

They were told the degree mattered.Then discovered it often did not.

When nearly half of recent graduates are underemployed and entire fields regularly produce jobless or underpaid graduates, the issue is no longer individual choice. It is systemic misrepresentation.

Barely Adults, Permanent Consequences

Most students sign loan contracts at eighteen or nineteen.

They are legal adults, but they are not equipped to forecast labor markets decades in advance. They cannot audit university finances. They cannot meaningfully assess whether a degree will retain value in a rapidly changing economy.

Only a few generations ago, students could work while enrolled and graduate with little or no debt. Today, balances of sixty to one hundred thousand dollars are increasingly normalized for those deemed “qualified.”

For those under twenty five without parental support or existing capital, the barrier is often absolute.

This is not an opportunity.It is access conditioned on debt.

Neurodivergence and Credential Based Classism

There is another layer to this that rarely gets named.

The credential system quietly discriminates against neurodivergent people.

Some of the most intelligent, creative, and capable individuals are not built for traditional academic environments. They think differently. Learn differently. Solve problems differently.

Yet the absence of a degree often ends the conversation before it begins.

Applications are filtered automatically. Meetings are denied. Capability is dismissed without evaluation. Merit is never assessed because the paperwork is missing.

This is intolerance hiding behind professionalism.

Many who publicly claim to support diversity and inclusion participate daily in a system that excludes people based on a narrow definition of intelligence and success. Neurodivergence becomes an inconvenience rather than a recognized form of ability.

If you cannot afford the credential or cannot function within the academic mold, your intelligence is treated as irrelevant.

That is not inclusion.That is conformity enforced by debt.

When Access Is Mistaken for Worth

The system now confuses access with merit and money with value.

Those who could afford school or tolerate its structure are elevated. Those who could not are filtered out. This sorting is framed as qualification rather than class division.

And because it is normalized, the injustice is rarely questioned.

But step back and the pattern is obvious.

The student loan experiment was meant to open doors.Instead, it inflated prices, diluted meaning, and hardened barriers.

The Question That Refuses to Go Away

If degrees are essential, selling them at inflated prices is unjust.If degrees are often economically hollow, enforcing repayment is unjust.

Both cannot be true without admitting something fundamental failed.

So the question is no longer whether college is worth it.

What do we do when an experiment designed to expand opportunity ends up rationing dignity, And who benefits from pretending it still works?

That question leads somewhere uncomfortable.

And that is where the next article begins.

Jordan Ochoa

Independent Journalist 

Native Tucsonan