Higher Education is outdated for the millennial generation

I'm typing this on my phone so sorry in advance for any typos/terrible sources. Thus debate has been quite problematic as... 1) whilst the premise 'higher education is outdated for the millennial generration' is clear enough, I wasn't clear on what my argument would be on - that higher education is outdated and needs serious reform whilst being maintained. 2) con accepted the debate believing that higher education was indeed, outdated for the millennial generation, and accepted anyway believing that he would argue for 'pro education' (if my interpretation is correct) 3) this confusion was found out after my first argument as shown in the comments. Hence I suggested and we agreed to compromise so that my argument would be 'higher education is outdated, and therefore not worth it to everyone'. Sadly I later found myself arguing for a position I did not personally believe in, but I will maintain this position for the sake of this debate. CON RE: millennials care more about contributing to society, and college education opens up more doors to help society that High school cannot. (E.g. Nursing, doctors) 1- Yes, nursing and doctoring can definitely improve our quality of life - yet does this really create a big social impact? According to 80000.org (1), each doctor saves about 90 lives in their lifetime. Medicine has extended everyone's quality of life for 7 years. Yet, 1) the amount of good medicine has done is overestimated 2) increase in age is not mutually exclusive to increase in disabled life - hence a full quality life is not completely true. 3) doctors cannot take sole credit for medicine. (Researchers, managers, scientists, nurses) In the end, we can save 6 times the amount of lives a doctor saves by simply donating 10% of our income wisely to a worthy foundation. 2- You don't need to go to university without creating a big social impact (the idea that these are mutually exclusive is false) examples : Stephen Spielberg, Mark zuckerverg, Bill Gates 3-Medicine is not the only way you can solve world problems it is sometimes not even the best way. What about electricity? Or education? Or government? CON RE: if college is not worth it, why are more millennials going to college than any other generation? They must be going for a meaningful degree that can help society. Millennials are going to college more than any other generation because they have the most opportunity to go, because they are pushed (45%) by their parents to go, perhaps because they believe it can lead them where they want to be also. However millennials are also expected to only be able to repay their debts in the next 11 years, 37% students regret going to college, and 49% graduates believe that they would have ended up where they are today without a college degree. (2) RE: there exists alternative pathways to college education - Con argues some fields do not have alternatives, and alternatives are not needed if college education becomes tax funded. 1- yes some fields do not have alternatives, but it is increasingly clear today that college is not necessary for everyone and not worth it for everyone. Commerce, arts and in some cases even in science. Con uses the doctor argument again, yet it is revealed above that medicine is not as influential on the quality of life than investing and utilising your money to elsewhere for society, which millennials care more about. Additionally one field of practise is not enough to validate the value of higher education for the entire pool of millennials as a whole. Only 0.27% of the population are doctors, for example. (2) 2-Con suggests that tax payer money be used to fully fund college education. Whilst that is the case for Germany today, and even Australia in the past, I personally don't believe this is possible in America. It is a strong liberal democracy that values it's small government. It also strongly advocates for the freedom of the people from 'corrupt officials' etc. To believe a call for such a huge reform with such major repercussions on the people to become successful would be too idealistic. One would have to convince the president-trump, Congress (which I imaging would be near impossible) and the judiciary to even consider this. Not to mention the inequality that exists in the US today already - to ask for more tax paying money would be difficult. RE: Skill can be better used as a qualifier for job performance - Con argues you often develop your skills from college and not every employee will give you an examination, and hence college is necessary to indicate your skills. Yes many develop skills from college but this is only because it forces people to keep working. Your own resolution to succeed is what is important. Hence, you do not need a college degree to develop your skills. No, usually a career in these fields do not require an examination, but rather an example of their work (e.g. A photograph, a piece of writing, a translation, a conversation in French etc.) which I believe speaks louder than certifications of a degree. RE: statistic argument Sorry as you didn't exemplify that you averaged the two statistics I only guessed that you compared each statistic with the general statistic of 23.5%. Yes I admit my calculation was wrong but I didn't really trust that addition of the two percentages anyway and it was used more of an example as to why comparing 2 independent means together is unreliable. As to why your calculation is unreliable - I don't have my computer here but it seems to be that you don't know the sample size of any of the statistics that you used (undergraduates with anxiety or depression, postgraduates with anxiety or depression, adults with anxiety, adults with depression) and hence am unable to make a reliable statistical comparison between any of the figures. You don't know if these population sample figures are normally distributed either, or independent from each other. Hence you cannot come up with a reasonable T statistic to accept or reject the null hypothesis which is - are the means of postgraduates with anxiety or depression the same with the means of adults with anxiety or depression? (Or likewise with undergraduates) not to mention that adults with anxiety or depression have two different sample sizes being from different sources. I have also taken statistics as a unit this year (3) Also, Thanks for this debate con! I enjoyed it despite our confusions haha. I have developed a lot more insight about millennials, about the past, and about college and higher education in general. 1) https://80000hours.org... 2)http://www.forbes.com... 3) https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu...