Broken college promises drive young graduates toward economic populism

The brief

For decades, a college degree was marketed as the ultimate ticket to the middle class. Instead, a generation of graduates has inherited crushing student debt, stagnant wages, and underemployment, breaking the economic promise of higher education.

Journalist Noam Scheiber argues that this gap between expectations and reality has fueled a powerful surge of economic populism, pushing college-educated workers further to the left than previous generations.

The traditional alignment of working-class voters with the left is shifting. Instead, highly educated but economically frustrated young workers are driving support for progressive policy and democratic socialist candidates.

With corporate consolidation and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence threatening to further white-collar job security, this new economic populism is poised to permanently reshape American class politics.