Second, advanced software is taking over many tasks that had been done by well-educated professionals -- including data analysis, accounting, legal and engineering work, even some medical diagnoses.
As a result, the demand for well-educated workers in the United States seems to have peaked around 2000 and fallen since. But the supply of well-educated workers has continued to grow.
What happens when demand drops and supply increases? You guessed it. This is why the incomes of young people who graduated college after 2000 have barely risen.
Those just within the top 10 percent of college graduate earnings have seen their incomes increase by only 4.4 percent since 2000.
When it comes to beginning their careers, it's even worse. The starting wages of college graduates have actually dropped since 2000. The starting wage of women grads has dropped 8.1 percent, and for men, 6.7 percent.
I hear it all the time from my former students. The New York Times calls them "Generation Limbo" -- well-educated young adults "whose careers are stuck in neutral, coping with dead-end jobs and listless prospects." A record number are living at home.
The deeper problem is this. While a college education is now a prerequisite for joining the middle class, the middle class is in lousy shape. Its share of the total economic pie continues to shrink, while the share going to the very top continues to grow.
Given all this, a college degree is worth the cost because it at least enables a young person to tread water. Without the degree, young people can easily drown.
Some young college graduates will make it into the top 1 percent. But that route is narrower than ever. The on-ramp often requires the right connections (especially parents well inside the top 1 percent).
And the off-ramps basically go in only three directions: Wall Street, corporate consulting, and Silicon Valley.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe the main reason to go to college -- or to choose one career over another -- should be to make lots of money.
Hopefully, a college education gives young people tools for leading full and purposeful lives, and having meaningful careers.
Even if they don't change the world for the better, I want my students to be responsible and engaged citizens.
But when considering a college education in a perilous economy like this, it's also important to know the economics.
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