The answer to this question is not as simple as some zoomers and millennials choosing stupid degrees or not making straight A's. Although there are individuals that it no doubt applies to, I am speaking in generalizations ITT.
In my opinion, it is a combination of DEI (civil rights administration), unchecked immigration (legal and illegal), the infinite amounts of dollar bills congress has been printing for 20 years, America's free market policies, and the money dumped into American universities over the last decade plus. I will try to briefly address each in order:
DEI/Civil Rights Administration - The most tangible effects of the CRA has been felt in the last 5 years, white men are simply barred from entry to most companies with HR departments (which is most). Unless you have connections, you are screwed. You may find employment but your ceiling at your employer is low do to being white, Christian, straight, and male.
Unchecked immigration - put simply more labor equals more competition and decreasing wages. American men should not have to compete against foreign workers. But not only are they now competing for employment they are competing for spots in lawschool, medschool, undergrad etc. And due to the CRA, these immigrants are a protected class as a matter of law so any admission standards colleges have which statistically results in less members of a protected class being accepted is presumed racist (illegal) as a matter of law. Of course the Court did away with Affirmative Action recently but its about 20 years too late, these colleges are staffed with true believers.
In infinite amount of dollar bills - I'll just touch on one thing here, rampant inflation.
Free Market - people don't like to hear this but NAFTA, trade with china, sending all manufacturing etc to third world countries is the free market. I'll touch on one of the effects here. Put simply, our manufacturing sector of the economy, which provided good jobs and fulfilling employment without the need for college no longer exists. This drives a number of people to college that are not suited for it.
Dumping of money into universities - this ties into some of my previous posts talking about the relationship of the government as the lender. One of the crooked affects there is it takes all risks away from colleges when it comes to underwriting what students it accepts and what degrees they allow. These colleges are incentivized to accept as many as possible and charge as much as possible because the colleges know the government will always pay the bill for them.
There are others and this a simple explanation of a complicated issue but its not just the gays on campus majoring in dance who can't afford their loans. For a recent example see Elon Musk's and Vivek's twitter meltdown over H1B visas. Even American engineers are being replaced by foreign labor.
