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Over 4 million Gen Zers are jobless—and experts blame colleges for ‘worthless degrees’ and a system of broken promises for the rising number NEETs

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Summary
Nutrition label

80% Informative

A quarter of Gen Zers are now deemed NEETs, meaning they are no longer in education, employment, or training.

In the U.S. , this translates to an estimated over 4.3 million young people not in school or work.

A British podcaster called the situation a “catastrophe” and cast a broad-stroke blame on the education system.

VR Score

80

Informative language

77

Neutral language

49

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

56

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

short-lived

External references

15

https://bentleylewis.com/insight/person/lewis-maleh-19/https://fortune.com/europe/article/why-cant-gen-z-find-jobs-unemployment-mental-health-tiktok/https://fortune.com/2025/02/02/gen-z-grad-says-being-unemployed-is-harder-than-a-9-5-because-most-workers-would-have-a-breakdown-dealing-with-the-admin-hes-among-the-neet-men-frozen-out/https://educationdata.org/college-degree-roi#return-by-degree-levelhttps://fortune.com/2025/03/25/gen-z-neet-not-in-education-employment-training-higher-ed-worthless-degrees-college/https://fortune.com/2024/06/21/gen-z-neets-not-in-employment-education-or-training/https://fortune.com/2024/12/13/tiktok-carbon-footprint-emissions-doomscrolling-greece-greenly/https://fortune.com/education/careers/bls-occupation-projections/https://fortune.com/2025/03/17/millennials-student-loan-payments-skyrocket-donald-trump-administration-changes-department-of-education/https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/february2025https://ilostat.ilo.org/blog/assessing-the-current-state-of-the-global-labour-market-implications-for-achieving-the-global-goals/https://fortune.com/2025/03/11/skilled-trade-shortage-blackrock-ceo-larry-fink-gen-z-trump/https://measureofamerica.org/tags/disconnected-youth/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14519653/peter-hitchens-useless-university-degrees-gen-z-sarah-vine-podcast.htmlhttps://fortune.com/2025/03/17/gen-z-trillions-great-wealth-transfer-pay-hikes/

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