‘Why can’t new grads find jobs?’: Curley’s theory on the devaluation of college degrees

John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, discussed the current challenges in the job market for college graduates, as degrees have become devalued partially in part because the achievement is now a bare minimum requirement for employers.

Curley explained that at a football game, if the person in front stands up to get a better view, the row behind must do the same or risk an obstructed view. Pretty soon, row after row is tasked with standing to get a peek at the action, until everyone eventually has the same view they began with. Curley likened this scenario to kids attending college, graduating, and applying for jobs on a level playing field where everyone has a degree.

“Why can’t recruiters find workers, and new grads can’t find jobs: it’s not all AI,” Curley said. “I assume part of the problem is where people are applying and what they’re applying with, because so many people now have college degrees; they’re worthless. Then the employer goes to hire you, and oh, you’ve got a degree. Well, everybody else has a degree, and then they look at your grades, and your grades are way up there too; it’s worthless.”

KIRO producer said some once-promising fields are now vanishing

KIRO producer Joe Wallace noted that what was once foretold as a necessity for securing a high-paying job is now seen as a “non-existent” occupation due to increased competition, whether from artificial intelligence or an expanding pool of other candidates.

“What we were telling people to study over the past 10 to 15 years is all of a sudden becoming just a much less lucrative career,” Wallace said. “Not even less lucrative, just a non-existent field. Coders and computer science developers.”

Curley noted the current need for trade workers, with many of these jobs still massively undermanned, even though they pay substantial wages to the workforce.

“Now, quickly, you have to change and get into something else,” Curley said. “They say eventually, within I don’t know 20 to 30 years, whatever, they’ll have robots building everything, but if you just want to be able to have some job that will pay well. In 2009, Barack Obama said we want everybody to go to college, but by 2014, the tune changed a little bit. They spend money on programs to get kids into the skill trades, which is great. But there’s still not enough of them.

“In 2020, there were 463,860 plumbers in the apprentice program. It went up to 550,000 in 2025, still an increase of 21%, but still way down,” Curley continued. “There’s still a dearth of people who are going to be plumbers, framers, people who’ll just continue to build the houses. But if you get in there early enough, you can make a pretty good career, a nice living. You could make $150,000 to $200,000 a year doing trades, or skill work that was kind of pooped on for a long time.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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