The Career Advice We Gave Our Kids Is Becoming Obsolete
Why Debt, AI, and a System Built on Incentives Demand a New Path Forward
For decades, American families were taught a single, unchallenged formula for success: graduate high school, go to college, earn a degree, and secure a stable white-collar career. Parents repeated it because they believed it. Schools reinforced it. Guidance counselors built entire systems around it. Students who chose a different path were often told they were settling for less.
That advice made sense in a pre-automation, pre-artificial-intelligence economy.
It makes far less sense today.
We are now living through one of the fastest labor-market transformations in modern history. Artificial intelligence, automation, and globalized labor markets are reshaping work faster than institutions can adapt. This shift is not theoretical. It is already happening.
The White-Collar Illusion Is Breaking Down
Many careers once considered “safe” are being fundamentally restructured. Entry-level legal research, contract review, accounting reconciliation, financial modeling, technical writing, coding, media production, and even investigative research are now heavily assisted—or in some cases replaced—by AI systems.
What once required teams of specialists, months of work, and significant capital can now be done by individuals or small teams using advanced tools. Productivity has exploded. Labor demand has not.
This does not mean lawyers, accountants, programmers, or writers are disappearing overnight. It does mean fewer people are needed, competition is intensifying, and economic value is concentrating at the top.
In plain terms: fewer jobs, more credentials, higher risk.
America’s Student Debt Crisis: Over-Educated and Underemployed
At the same time white-collar labor is being compressed by automation, the cost of higher education has continued to climb—often without any guarantee of economic return.
Student loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.7 trillion, burdening tens of millions of Americans. Unlike most developed nations, the U.S. normalized a system in which young adults are encouraged to take on mortgage-sized debt before earning their first paycheck, often without clear alignment between degrees and labor-market demand.
The result is a paradox that should alarm parents and policymakers alike: the United States has become one of the most expensive, over-educated, and underemployed societies in the world.
Degrees have proliferated faster than demand for degree-dependent jobs. Credential inflation has turned bachelor’s degrees into baseline requirements for roles that once required experience or vocational training. Meanwhile, real wages for many degree-holders have stagnated while tuition and fees have continued to rise.
This has produced a generation that is highly credentialed, deeply indebted, delayed in homeownership and family formation, and increasingly dependent on income-based repayment or forgiveness programs.
In economic terms, this is not an education system. It is a leverage system.
Putting $1.7 Trillion Into Perspective
When politicians or commentators casually reference $1.7 trillion in student loan debt, the number often loses meaning. It is simply too large to process intuitively.
So let’s make it real.
$1.7 trillion is larger than the entire annual economic output of many developed nations. American student debt alone exceeds the GDP of countries such as New Zealand, Portugal, Greece, and Hungary. In other words, the debt carried by U.S. students represents more economic weight than what millions of people in sovereign nations produce in an entire year.
This is not a rounding error. It is a macroeconomic force.
Spread across roughly 45 million borrowers, this debt represents tens of thousands of dollars per household—carried during the exact years when Americans should be buying homes, starting families, launching businesses, and building long-term stability. Instead, a massive share of income is diverted toward servicing educational debt, often for degrees that no longer guarantee employment in the fields they were meant to unlock.
The opportunity cost is staggering.
That same $1.7 trillion could fund decades of nationwide apprenticeship programs, trade schools, infrastructure development, or workforce retraining initiatives. It could modernize energy grids, rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity, or meaningfully reduce housing shortages.
Instead, it sits largely as interest-bearing liability on personal balance sheets.
Unlike corporate debt, student loan debt does not finance productive assets. It does not build factories, equipment, or infrastructure. In many cases, it does not even produce commensurate earnings. It is debt incurred on the promise of future opportunity that increasingly fails to materialize.
This Was Not an Accident: Incentives, Universities, and Strategic Blindness
To understand how we arrived here, critical thinking requires asking an uncomfortable question: who benefited from promoting the idea that everyone needed to go to college, regardless of labor-market consequences?
Universities did.
For decades, higher-education institutions enjoyed enormous financial upside by expanding enrollment. More students meant more tuition revenue, more federally backed loan dollars, larger administrative staffs, and greater political influence. There was little incentive to slow that momentum—even as costs ballooned and outcomes deteriorated.
At the same time, many large corporations benefited from a parallel dynamic.
As universities funneled American students away from trades and hands-on careers, domestic skilled-labor pipelines weakened. That labor gap did not remain unfilled. It was quietly replaced through cheaper labor—much of it illegal—enabled by inconsistent border enforcement and selective regulatory blindness.
This alignment of incentives mattered.
Universities gained tuition growth insulated by federal loan guarantees. Corporations gained access to lower-cost labor. Politicians gained campaign support while deferring hard decisions on border security, workforce development, and education reform.
Meanwhile, American students were told to borrow more, specialize earlier, and trust that the system would correct itself.
It did not.
Rising tuition, exploding student debt, shrinking returns on degrees, labor shortages in skilled trades, and wage suppression were not unforeseen side effects. They were logical outcomes of these incentives.
This was not a sudden failure. It was a predictable result of policy choices that prioritized short-term institutional profit over long-term national workforce health.
The Trades Are Not a Fallback. They Are a Strategic Advantage.
While white-collar work is being digitized, skilled trades face the opposite challenge: persistent labor shortages.
Plumbers, electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, linemen, mechanics, and construction specialists perform work that cannot be automated at scale. These roles require physical presence, real-world judgment, adaptability, and hands-on problem-solving.
As a result, wages in many trade fields are rising faster than inflation. Apprenticeships allow young people to earn while they learn. Debt is minimal. Demand is steady. Job security is high.
For many Americans, the trades offer something increasingly rare in the modern economy: stability without lifelong debt.
The Hard Truth Many Won’t Say: Illegal Labor and Displaced American Workers
There is another reality shaping the trades that must be addressed honestly. A significant share of trade and manual labor jobs in the United States are currently being performed by illegal aliens, not merely undocumented workers.
In construction, roofing, landscaping, agricultural-adjacent trades, and certain manufacturing and maintenance roles, illegal labor has become normalized in many regions. This is not rhetoric. It is a labor-market fact acknowledged quietly by employers, regulators, and economists alike.
When businesses rely on illegal labor, wages are suppressed, benefits are reduced, and labor standards are unevenly enforced. Illegal aliens often work for lower pay and fewer protections than American citizens are legally allowed to accept.
This creates an uneven playing field.
The result is a self-reinforcing cycle. Fewer Americans enter the trades. Employers rely more heavily on illegal labor. Wage growth stagnates. Trades appear less viable as long-term careers for citizens.
Illegal aliens did not design this system. Inconsistent enforcement and political avoidance did. But ignoring the impact does not make it disappear.
If the trades are to be a serious solution for American workers, immigration enforcement, labor policy, and workforce development cannot be treated as separate issues.
The Real Divide Is Not College vs. Trades
The most important distinction going forward is not white-collar versus blue-collar. It is adaptability versus rigidity.
The careers most at risk are not those requiring physical labor or advanced thinking. They are the ones built around repetitive, rules-based cognitive tasks—precisely what artificial intelligence excels at.
The careers most resilient require judgment in real-world conditions, involve human trust and accountability, and evolve alongside technology rather than competing with it.
What Parents and Educators Must Teach Instead
The most damaging lesson we can pass to the next generation is that there is a single correct path to success.
What young people need today is strategic thinking. How to evaluate financial risk. How to adapt as tools and industries change. How to build practical, transferable skills. How to avoid debt that limits future choices.
For many families, that means trade schools, certifications, apprenticeships, or targeted education paired with real-world experience—not default four-year degrees pursued on blind faith.
Bottom Line
Artificial intelligence is not eliminating work. It is exposing systems built on outdated assumptions and misaligned incentives.
The future belongs to individuals who can think critically, learn continuously, and apply judgment in ways machines cannot. For many young Americans, that future will be built with their hands, their skills, and their adaptability—not simply with a diploma.
Parents, educators, and policymakers must confront this reality honestly. The old playbook no longer works.
Bottom line:
College is no longer the default.
Trades are no longer the exception.
Adaptability is the new requirement.
Published by The Craig Bushon Show Media Team
Editorial Disclaimer
This op-ed reflects the analysis and opinions of The Craig Bushon Show Media Team and is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or policy advice. Discussions of labor, education, and immigration are presented within a public-policy and economic context and are not intended to disparage individuals. Readers are encouraged to evaluate the information independently.
