College used to be the bargain. Four years, some debt, one degree—and the doors opened. That contract is void.
Master's degree holders are now submitting 60 job applications per month with nothing to show for it. Bachelor's degree holders fare slightly better at 38 monthly applications, which is to say they're still desperately throwing resumes into the algorithmic void. Computer science graduates—the ones we told to "learn to code" when their liberal arts friends couldn't find work—are applying to 51 jobs monthly. The degree that was supposed to guarantee six figures now guarantees fifty-one rejections.
Job seekers are applying to twice as many positions in 2025 as they did in 2024. The American Dream isn't delayed—it's being actively gatekept by ghost jobs, AI screening tools, and companies that post openings they never intend to fill.
Here's the cruel arithmetic: more education now equals more desperation. The master's degree—once a differentiator, a signal of specialization and commitment—has become a liability marker. You're overqualified for entry-level work, underexperienced for senior roles, and caught in a credentialing trap that costs $50,000+ and buys you the privilege of 60 monthly rejections.
We sold an entire generation on educational escalation. When bachelor's degrees became common, master's degrees became necessary. Now master's degrees are common, and the goal posts have moved again—except this time, there's nowhere left to move. A PhD doesn't solve the problem when the problem is that companies have decided humans are optional.
The students who did everything "right"—studied in-demand fields, earned advanced degrees, built portfolios, networked obsessively—are discovering that the system was rigged from the start. Not through malice necessarily, but through basic economics: why hire a human when an AI can approximate the work for a subscription fee?
"Ghost jobs"—postings that exist only to maintain the appearance of growth or to harvest resumes for future consideration—now constitute a significant portion of listed openings. Companies post roles they don't intend to fill, either to keep internal candidates on their toes, to justify overworked teams, or simply because recruitment departments are measured by pipeline volume, not actual hires.
Then there are the AI screening tools that reject qualified candidates because their resumes don't contain the exact keyword combinations programmed by someone who's never actually done the job. Humans applying to jobs, rejected by algorithms, while human hiring managers complain they can't find qualified candidates. The system is eating itself.
Computer science graduates applying to 51 jobs monthly should terrify everyone. This is the field we pointed to as the safe harbor, the rational choice, the career path that would survive automation. If software engineers can't land roles, who can?
Graduates are asking if their degrees were "a waste of money," and the honest answer is: financially, often yes. Not because education has no value, but because the economic promise attached to that education was fraudulent from the start.
Universities sold credentials as career insurance while collecting tuition that compounds interest faster than wages grow. Employers demanded degrees while refusing to train anyone under 30. And now we're shocked—shocked—that people with $100,000 in student debt and zero job prospects feel betrayed.
The degree isn't worthless. The market we built around it is.
We don't have good answers yet. Telling people to "upskill" is insulting when the upskilled can't find work. Suggesting entrepreneurship ignores that most people need reliable income, not speculative ventures. And pointing to emerging industries rings hollow when those industries employ thousands while automation eliminates millions.
What we do know: the old contract is dead, and we haven't negotiated a new one. The generations entering the workforce now are the first to genuinely question whether the whole structure—college, career, retirement—still functions at all.
They're right to question it. And we owe them better answers than "keep applying."
If you're trying to build hiring strategies that actually identify qualified humans instead of filtering them out algorithmically, or growth approaches that acknowledge the current market reality, Winsome Marketing works with companies navigating what comes next.