College Isn’t the Only Door: Rethinking Success, Student Debt, and the Degree-Free Path

The Skinny With Ginny #4

If you graduated in an era when college felt like a golden ticket, it can be jarring to realize that path doesn’t fit every young adult today. Tuition has outpaced wages for decades, borrowing has become normalized, and too many grads discover that a four-year degree doesn’t guarantee meaningful work, or even relevant skills. Meanwhile, entire categories of good jobs either don’t require a degree or explicitly train you on the job.

Two data points help frame the problem. First, a medical-journal overview of student debt shows just how profoundly loans can shape adult life; delaying families, dampening financial resilience, and adding stress that reverberates well beyond the classroom. Second, a 2024 Pew Research Center “facts about student loans” roundup underscores the sheer scale and uneven burden of debt in the U.S. - how many Americans carry it, who’s most affected, and what repayment looks like today. Put plainly: borrowing has become the default for millions of students, and the tradeoffs often last years longer than we tell our teens.

Now add the most important on-the-ground reality we discussed with Hannah Maruyama, cohost of the Degree Free Podcast: only a small slice of jobs truly require a college credential by law. In Hannah’s analysis, about 7% of U.S. jobs are legally degree-required (think licensed physicians, veterinarians, registered nurses, public school teachers in most states, professional engineers in some jurisdictions, clinical psychologists, etc.). Everything else? Employers care about whether you can do the work.

That claim alone should change how families plan the years after high school.f

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Why the “Degree by Default” Model Is Breaking Down

1) The financial math has changed.
The PMC review details how student loans ripple into health, stress, and family formation. Pew’s 2024 brief shows how broad this burden has become and how tough repayment remains for many. Beyond the obvious tuition line items, there’s another cost families often miss: lost wages. Those four to six years spent in lecture halls are years you’re not earning, compounding, and learning in the market.

2) Labor markets now reward skills, proof of work, and adaptability.
Hannah calls her approach “finding a job backwards”: decide on earnings and lifestyle targets, then identify roles that meet them, break down the skills those roles actually require, and learn those skills fast. That’s how she pivoted from service work to a remote tech job in weeks, without a degree, then stacked certifications to six figures. Her story isn’t an outlier; it’s a template in a market where portfolios, certifications, projects, and apprenticeships increasingly outrank a generic BA.

3) College is a tool, not a personality test.
College still makes sense for legally licensed paths or when it’s the fastest, cheapest route to the skills you need. But “majoring in an interest” has too often turned into borrowing for identity’s sake, paying a premium for a credential that isn’t required for the job. As Hannah puts it: help teens separate identity from employment. Work is a means to build the life you want; it isn’t the life.

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What 1000 Hours Outside Adds: Agency, Real-World Learning, and the Courage to Pivot

Our movement has always argued that free play, outdoor challenge, and boredom aren’t extras; they are the forge for grit, curiosity, and problem-solving. Those same traits are the raw materials of a degree-free career. Climbing a boulder and shipping a first project feel different, but they rely on the same muscles: self-direction, risk assessment, iteration, and recovery after a slip.