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Once an affordable investment in the future, the cost of attendance at universities has soared to all-time highs. And it’s only getting worse. Some families are paying upward of $90,000 a school year at some private universities, and graduates face sky-high payments on their student loans.

While some conservatives have argued that it’s time to abandon the four-year university and to invest in the trades, others think college is still beneficial for some. And some even want young conservatives to attend elite universities in hopes of reclaiming America’s institutions.

On "Zero Hour," Mike Rowe, Emmy Award-winning TV host, producer, author, and CEO of the MikeroweWORKS Foundation, sat down with James Poulos to discuss the state of higher education in America.

Even though more young Americans are attending college at unprecedented rates, Rowe thinks Americans are “overeducated but I also think conversely, or maybe perversely ... underinformed.”

“I feel like we know a lot of things that we don't necessarily do anything with. And the things we ought to know we don't have at our ready disposal,” said Rowe. “No one talks about the fact that 41% of people who start don't graduate. Like 85% of people who do graduate wind up not working in their chosen field.”

Rowe believes that college is not the best option for many young Americans. However, the idea of going to college has been ingrained into the minds of almost all Americans by society, so many families do not know what the other options are. “There are just so many things about the primacy of a 4-year transaction that don't get laid out honestly and so parents and kids unfortunately have never, at least in my lifetime I think, had an honest chance to look at all the options,” argued Rowe.

To hear more of what Mike Rowe had to say about education, the future workforce, hands-on tech, and more, watch the full episode of "Zero Hour" with James Poulos.

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.

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