It all depends on what kind of college (or university) degree you are getting. In general, people with degrees in Computer Science, Engineering and Management tend to have much lower unemployment and higher wages than the typical college (or university) graduate; and those college (or university) graduates tend to have lower unemployment and higher wages than the average.

Where a degree becomes more of a waste of time, effort and money is when you’re in other fields where they graduate 10 (or more) students for every employment or graduate position available; and this leaves 90% (or more) of those students having spent tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to do a job they would have been qualified for without their degree.

With that said, the people I know who are the most successful were the ones who went into the trades and started up their own businesses. To a certain extent I believe that this is driven by the over emphasis on a university education from my parents’ generation which created a massive shortage of qualified trades people; and if all the people who were taking useless degrees moved into the trades a university education would (potentially) become far more valuable again.

Here is the ONE thing a college degree gets you: get your resume looked at.  Due to the oversupply of college graduates, jobs add a college degree to the list of requirements so they don't need to look at as many resumes, even if the job doesn't need it.

One needs to add experience and certifications, and other things to better your chance at work.  People need to weight the debt load vs potential payout when deciding whether to do college.

Really. This topic should have been called 'some college degrees are a waste of time, money and effort'. Certainly not all of them.

I made a mistake with the thread title. I personally found college was a waste of time, money and effort. $40k debt interest and growing  for two years since completing college degree. Part time  and casual jobs waiting tables, retail,factory jobs, volunteering work and labouring jobs.  

Engineering degree would have been so much better than a Business degree. A trade would of cost less than college degree and would have lead to a career in skilled manual labour work. 

College degree guarantees a high paid job and successful career is absolute crap. The billionaires CEOs, company directors and senior managers distort the average earnings of college graduates. By removing the outliers  that inflate the averages, the average salaries for college graduates is reduced. 

The pay differential between a BS and a Masters in comp sci/info systems is least of all majors.

College is good because you get an education and being knowledgeable = good.  It is a well known fact that college grads get higher paying jobs.

That being said,saying you need a college degree for a high paying job is incorrect.  You work hard and work in jobs that requires skills and experience and room to grow and you'll find a high paying job in 5-10 years.

Saying college degrees are a waste of time is just false tho.  You still stand a higher chance of getting a well paying job with a college degree than without one.  Think of it this way, high school needs to work hard to get a great job after 5 years.  college grad needs to study, while partying and getting laid to get a great job after 4years.  Both options run the risk of getting screwed if you slack off.  The college route has a higher chance of success, but you're screwed so much harder if you fail.

What is retarded however is going for a PhD.  so effing retarded. 

You shouldn't group Information Systems and Computer Information Systems with Computer Science because there is a difference between the kinds of institutions that give out Information Systems or Computer Information Systems and Computer Science degrees. Most accredited Universities tend to give out Computer Science degrees, whereas Information Systems and Computer Information Systems degrees tend to come from community colleges and schools like Devry. 

There are typically fairly noticeable differences in unemployment rates and average wages when you de-group these degree fields. Consider that the median starting/mid-career salaries of the following degrees:

Computer Engineering:            $61,200 / $99,500
Computer Science:                $56,200 / $97,700
Software Engineering:            $56,700 / $91,300
Information Systems:            $49,300 / $87,100
Computer Information Systems:     $48,300 / $83,100
Information Technology:         $49,600 / $79,300

http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp

With that said, there are reasons why a graduate degree in a field like Computer Science don’t offer much in the way of a salary boost; and the primary reason is that most employers would rather hire an individual who has 2 extra years of relevant experience than someone with 2 additional years of education; and about the only time the graduate degree gives you an advantage is if you took a research based graduate degree and the subject of your research directly relates to the company’s core product development. An example of this would be someone who has a graduate degree in computer science and was researching graphics would probably be in higher demand for a game developer who produced their own in-house game engine.