Bachelor's degree: Has it lost its edge and its value?

After World War II and through decades of postwar economic growth, college attendance morphed from an exception into the desired norm. In 1950, some 34 percent of adults had completed high school; today, more than 30 percent have completed a bachelor's. In 2009, colleges and universities handed out more than 1.6 million bachelor's degrees, a number the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) expects will grow to almost 2 million by 2020.

Spiraling degree inflation is what Richard Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, calls it. The danger he sees is that growing numbers of Americans will be unnecessarily saddled with hefty student loans.

"The fact is that it is not a sure shot you're going to get the high-paying job," Professor Vedder says, and the notion that the earnings differential "is continuing to grow and expand is somewhat suspect."

Bachelor's degree-holders may well earn 66 percent more than high school graduates and 35 percent more than people with two-year degrees, he says. But for every bachelor's degree-holder earning more than $54,000 a year, he notes, there is a mail carrier, taxi driver, bartender, parking attendant or other worker with a bachelor's earning less. Indeed, almost 16 percent of the country's bartenders and almost 14 percent of its parking lot attendants have a bachelor's or higher.

Vedder predicts more and more college-­educated people will be in jobs that do not require a four-year degree.

Michael Hughes and Amanda Kusler met in just such a job, working as servers in a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Mich. It was 2007, and both had graduated from high school three years earlier.

Ms. Kusler was by then a junior at the University of Michigan, on track to finish up in four years.

For Mr. Hughes, on the other hand, the journey through college had been tortuous – and, in many ways more typical. He had started off at community college to build his grades, then transferred to Pennsylvania State University in State College on a water-polo scholarship. But when some of his credits failed to transfer, he lost the scholarship and had to transfer back to community college in Michigan.

By the time he met Kusler, Hughes says, "I didn't know what I was doing" and had "stopped out" – a popular term for students putting education on hold as they evaluate their future or get their finances in order.

The restaurant job paid well – in fact, Hughes says, "the servers made more money than the managers" though the managers did get benefits. And, he noticed, "everyone who was a manager had a college degree."

This did not escape his girlfriend's notice, either: "You do hear of people who get a great job out of high school and work their way up," she says, "but then when they lose it, they have nothing to fall back on."

Soon after they started dating, Kusler encouraged Hughes to reenroll and pursue a degree. "Especially nowadays," she believes, "it's a norm to get your BA – doesn't matter what it's in."

That was certainly the case for decades, says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, but not anymore.

"It used to be that just getting the bachelor's made you employable," Mr. Carnevale says. But the research increasingly shows "that the BA in and of itself is not what's valuable. Now, it more and more depends on what the degree is in."

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