Is it wise to even go to college these days?

As an employer, I tend to look very favorably on applicants with a college degree. I think students need to be smarter about how to pay for it, but it’s definitely an advantage. (I took extra time to finish my degree, for example, because I worked. I graduated with no debt.)

Yes. Pretty wise.

I have yet to find an employer who doesn’t want a degree beyond the most entry-level jobs. Advancing beyond that entry-level job is often contingent on you having a degree. I tried the experience-but-no-degree route, and it really bombed for me. There was no room for improvement or advancement, and there was always someone who had both a degree and experience. So you can not get in debt but also never get to a nice, really comfy place or you can take the debt and use it to get to a better place.

Yes, it’s wise, just like going to highschool is wise. Sonia Sotomayor wouldn’t be where she is without a college degree.

Having a degree automatically increases the job opportunities and the salary you can expect:

Bachelor’s Degree $52,200
Associate’s Degree $38,200
Some College $36,800
High School Graduate $30,400

Source

It’s even wiser to get an advanced degree. See @marinelife‘s link. People with professional degrees get an average of 109 K per year.

Oh, and the figures cited here are ten years old!

Absolutely. Consider it the price of admission to the job interview.
If you take a technical track at a good engineering school your ticket is punched.
The projects you work on in school are considered experience.

OTOH, If you take all fuzzy, fluff courses it probably won’t carry much weight if you are applying for a job at a technical place.

As someone who has hired people, I looked for a combination of experience and education. I wanted people with at least a bachelor’s. I’ve found having a bachelor’s usually shows two things: you have some self discipline and some brains.

Yes- it’s wise for the job market. But, there is a lot more than just that. A college degree doesn’t just equal a piece of paper. You gain a lot from college. Education is a complex thing. College isn’t for everyone, I understand that. But, I highly recommend it. I learned a lot about myself at college. On a side note- if you do go to college I HIGHLY recommend studying abroad for at least one semester (not doing that is one of my greatest regrets in life).

I think you are misunderstanding the experience rule. They usually mean that where two applicants have equal college education, the one with experience will get the job, not that experience will triumph over college educated.

Bachelor’s degrees are today’s equivalent of high school diplomas. Not everyone graduated high school years ago, and yet many people had good jobs in manufacturing and such. Unfortunately, where a high school diploma was fine 35–40 years ago, there are no longer the sort of really good paying jobs where a high school education would be considered enough.

You’ll have to suck it up and get some sort of education past high school, unless you have that invention that would make the world beat a path to your door. You may not necessarily need a bachelor’s, if you are looking to work a trade like repairing machines of many kinds or plumbing. Those jobs pay well and you need only go to technical college, or get yourself apprenticed someplace.

Very unwise not to. The number of knowledge workers will continue to grow. The number of task-oriented office workers and blue-collar workers will continue to decline. This will be handled by computers, machines and people in offshore locations.