Actually, not exactly. While it's a popular meme of 'college = job prep', colleges aren't trade schools. That's what trade schools are for. There's a reason why you cannot get out of general ed courses, for instance. Colleges are as much a journey as their access to jobs is a destination.

Many people have forgotten that college is for a) providing young adults time to discover who they are and what they want, b) developing a necessary understanding of citizenship and rational decision making in complex societies, c) providing a basis of knowledge to prepare future generations, and d) providing flexibility of mind and knowledge to adapt to future situations. Without these, the average young adult would have less idea of what they wanted in life, would be more susceptible to negative influence and false logic, would have a society that may not run in a way that provides a means of making a good living, and would be in a society where the trickle-down effects of poor education would compromise their grade-school learning. College is about a lot more than just getting you a plush job in a cubicle somewhere (which, by the way, will probably be ripped from under your feet in 15-20 years when you're older and less capable of change).

If you ignore these, you fall for a typical fallacy among college students, whereby majors that are not directly leading to a job and career is considered a waste of time. One specific outcome of believing this is
believing women getting a degree and then exiting the work force to have kids as having inherently less value to society than their partner who stays in the workforce, which when you consider the above reasons for college, clearly is a thought lacking in scope. But there are many other silly outcomes like this you'll come to if you think college = better job.

I'm not disputing that you can typically get a better job with higher pay with a college degree. I recognize the way things work now with degree inflation is that nearly everyone should go to college, because most other people have and you have to prove yourself at least at their level - a vetting and ranking process. In many respects the masters degree is the college degree of the first half of the 20th century, thats why I have two :) Nevertheless, the money as driving factor is a presumption that I'm not sure is entirely correct. Lots of people go because other people are going, because it's the thing to do, because it's a rite of passage in society. Most everyone would agree that having a degree is better than not, obviously. But we're intellectual beings in an increasingly intellectually rigorous society, and there are many needs that the promise of more money does not satisfy to your average 17-18 year old. They want to know what the world is, where interesting stuff is, who they are not who their parents want them to be, or even just what college is. Its only a select few that are occupying themselves with thinking about being investment bankers and other high paying post-college jobs, and those kids often burn out or change their minds when they realize things like law or accounting are, indeed, boring professions.

These kids aren't thinking job job job, they're thinking life life life. Let me put it another way - if money via job was the reason for college, why are there so many college grads that are going into obviously low paying professions? And don't answer with some elitist internet 'because they're dumber and less logical than me' stuff, please.