Ellen Ruppel Shell, professor of journalism at Boston University and author of the forthcoming book:“The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change”, writes:  Recent decades have brought agreement that higher education is, if not a cure, then at least a protection against underemployment and the inequality it engenders. 
Americans strove to rise to that challenge: A third of them ages 25 to 29 now hold at least a bachelor’s degree, and many paid heavily for the privilege. Young people and their families go into debt because they believe that college will help them in the job market. And on average it does. But this raises a question: Does higher education itself offer that benefit, or are the people who earn bachelor’s degrees already positioned to get higher-paying jobs?