Over the years we academics have painted ourselves into a corner with not just the claim that a college degree will help in finding a decent job (which is true!), but that it will get you some grand level of "achievement". In Denver, 54% of working-age adults have a college degree. They mostly have decent jobs, I'd bet. But 54% of your population cannot be leaders of distinction. As the man asks: who will take the coal from the mine? Who will take the salt from the earth? How to answer questions from anxious parents on college tours? I'm not sure either, except to say to them that campus is a place of many things, arts and sciences and professions and sports and getting to know people from different places, and these are all of value, and we should look at our children's experiences here (and I say this as a parent of college students) as time well spent, not just for the future, but the here and now.