Buyer Beware: Why All Schools and Majors Carry Risk — and Why HBCUs Deserve Better

For decades, American students have been told that higher education is the surest ticket to success. Families invest years of savings—or mountains of debt—into a degree, believing it will guarantee upward mobility. But the reality of U.S. higher education in 2025 is far more complex and far less secure. Buyer beware applies not only to shady for-profits or obscure degree programs, but to all schools and all majors.

And within this uneven playing field, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face a double bind: undervalued by mainstream rankings and underfunded by the very systems that claim to promote equity.

The Myth of the Golden Ticket

The dominant narrative says: “Go to college, pick the right major, and you’ll be fine.” Politicians repeat it. Universities market it. Parents cling to it. But the promise of a guaranteed return on investment has eroded.

• Student loan debt now exceeds $1.7 trillion.

• Nearly 40% of college graduates work in jobs that don’t require a degree, according to the Federal Reserve.

• Wages for many majors have stagnated, while housing, healthcare, and childcare costs soar.

Even high-demand majors like computer science or nursing come with risks: market saturation, burnout, and outsourcing.

No School Is Immune

Elite schools tout prestige, but that does not insulate graduates from financial stress. Many Ivy League students leave with heavy debt burdens, particularly those without family wealth. Alumni networks can open doors, but they cannot protect against systemic shocks like housing bubbles, pandemics, or global financial crises.

Regional public universities and community colleges provide affordable pathways, but decades of state disinvestment have left many underfunded. For-profits, meanwhile, continue to lure vulnerable students with aggressive marketing and dubious job-placement claims.

And HBCUs—often with smaller endowments and student populations that are more likely to be first-generation and lower-income—have been penalized by these very dynamics, despite their outsized impact.

Every Major Carries Risk

STEM fields are not immune to volatility. Tech layoffs in 2023–2024 showed that even software engineers can face sudden unemployment. Nursing and teaching, often called “recession-proof,” are plagued with overwork, poor pay, and high attrition.

Meanwhile, students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences face the stigma of “low ROI” degrees, even though their fields foster critical thinking, creativity, and civic engagement—the very qualities society desperately needs.

The truth is that all majors are shaped by larger economic forces—automation, globalization, financial speculation, climate disruption—that no individual student can control.

The HBCU Paradox

While all students must be cautious about the promises of higher ed, HBCUs offer something mainstream rankings often ignore: real impact in social mobility and professional pipelines.

• According to the National Science Foundation, nearly 25% of African American graduates with STEM bachelor’s degrees earned them at HBCUs.

• More than half of African American doctors and lawyers received their undergraduate degrees at HBCUs.

• A 2021 Brookings study concluded that HBCUs are “engines of upward mobility,” moving low-income students into higher income brackets at rates equal to or exceeding elite institutions.

Yet, systems like U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, QS, and Times Higher Education continue to underrate HBCUs because their metrics reward institutional wealth and exclusivity, not educational value.

By contrast, Washington Monthly, which measures social mobility, research benefiting society, and community service, consistently ranks HBCUs higher. Their success under these fairer metrics demonstrates how skewed the mainstream rankings truly are.

What Prospective Students Should Ask

Whether applying to an Ivy League university, a regional public, a for-profit, or an HBCU, students should treat college as a major financial investment. That means asking hard questions:

• What is the total cost of attendance after aid?

• What percentage of graduates find full-time work in their field within two years?

• What is the median debt load of graduates—and the median salary five and ten years after?

• What percentage of students drop out before graduating?

• How transparent is the school about these outcomes?

A System in Need of Reform

Ultimately, the “buyer beware” crisis in higher education is not about students making poor choices. It is about a system that pushes risk onto individuals while rewarding wealth and privilege.

HBCUs prove that institutions with fewer resources can deliver extraordinary results for students and society. But until rankings, funding formulas, and public policy recognize that value, students across the board will continue to shoulder the risks of a speculative credential market.

In today’s higher education economy, buyer beware applies to all schools and all majors—but students and society alike would be better served if we valued institutions, like HBCUs, that truly deliver on the promise of access and upward mobility.

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Sources:

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2023). Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates.

• Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (2022). ROI of College Majors.

• National Center for Education Statistics (2024). Student Loan Debt and Repayment.

• Brookings Institution (2021). The Economic Mobility of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

• UNCF (2020). HBCUs Make America Strong: The Positive Economic Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

• Washington Monthly (2024). National University Rankings.

• National Science Foundation (2022). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering.