At a glance, today’s youth appear impressively equipped, stacked with degrees, peppered with internships, fluent in digital tools, and brimming with a sense of ambition bordering on urgency. You’d think this was the most overqualified generation in history, and you wouldn’t be wrong.
In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the share of 25–34-year-olds with tertiary education rose from 27% in 2000 to 48% by 2022 (OECD, 2025). Globally, this trend holds: across income brackets and continents, younger cohorts are outpacing older generations in formal education attainment.
But let’s not romanticise it. This isn’t just about access to more institutions. It’s about a rising desperation, an arms race of diplomas, certifications, and second degrees, driven not by curiosity but by a creeping sense that you need to outrun obsolescence just to qualify for a conversation.
And that desperation? It’s not just felt by students, it’s funded by their families.
Financed by Families, Fueled by Desperation
In most economies, parents remain the primary financiers of tertiary education. In the U.S, 45% of college costs are covered directly from household income and savings (College Board, 2024). In emerging economies like Nigeria and India, families often shoulder up to 90% of tertiary expenses, frequently indebting themselves in the process (World Bank Study, 2018). Even in low-income nations, where public education might technically be free, the real costs, books, transport, housing, still land squarely on the backs of families.
So when we talk about young people being more “invested,” we’re also talking about entire households placing generational bets on the promise that education will lead to successful employment, stability, and a step up the ladder.
But what happens when the ladder is infinite, not leading anywhere?
We are left with today’s youth feeling more misplaced, misread, and misaligned with the world of work. Ask a recent graduate how they feel about the job market, and you’ll rarely hear quiet excitement or inspired curiosity. Instead, if you truly listen, you’ll hear exhaustion, confusion, and deep-rooted industry mistrust, no matter how skilled or optimistic the candidate. Many will tell you they are “too experienced” for entry-level roles and “too green” for almost anything else. Their digital portfolios are brimming with work, yet their inboxes remain empty. They’ve done everything right, yet they aren’t ‘just right’. And now, even the rules seem to be shifting: the Burning Glass Institute recently reported that “the percentage of jobs requiring a college degree dropped from 51% in 2017 to 44% in 2021” (Harvard Business Review, 2023), a signal that the credential ladder today’s youth were told to climb is quietly being moved sideways.
Welcome to the Goldilocks Paradox of Youth Employment
This is a growing space between youth job-seekers and employment, where almost nobody is ‘just right’ anymore. This shouldn’t be reduced to a feeling, but upheld as a system design issue, one that is costing us opportunity, equity, and billions in untapped human capital.
This is today’s world, where maybe the problem isn’t the porridge, it’s the bowl.
The real risk isn’t lack of ability, it’s being overlooked because no one ever taught you how to demonstrate your skills in a way that employers recognise.
So what should we be focusing on? The skills gap. That is the true challenge, for educators shaping learning systems, and for the youth preparing to enter the workforce.
The Skills Gap
Sounds like a Christian Nolan film, abstract, disorienting, impossible to escape. Except this one is real, and Christian Bale isn’t coming to save you in the third act.
The modern skills gap isn’t a crack to patch with a bootcamp or a LinkedIn certificate. It’s a canyon, shaped not by laziness or lack of ambition, but by decades of misaligned priorities.
Education systems are still optimising for answers in a world demanding better questions, and updating curricula isn’t enough. The real challenge is making learning transferable, ensuring graduates can adapt to tools launched last week, not just ace tests from last year. Complexity isn’t the same as competence, and we need to stop treating it like it is.
Meanwhile, young people are doing more than ever, freelancing, interning, building portfolios, and launching podcasts. The youth are performing readiness in a system that constantly shifts the goalposts.
The real disconnect? Being taught to be qualified, but not visible. Educated, but not positioned. Skills that don’t translate get filtered out, not because they’re lacking, but because they’re unreadable to the systems that decide.
This is what we mean when we say the problem isn’t the porridge. It’s the bowl.
The Baby Bear Playbook
Baby Bear is not just a metaphor. It’s a model.
Baby Bear isn’t an ideal candidate or a prototype graduate. It’s a way of thinking, practical, adoptable, and not dependent on grand reforms. What it requires is consistent, calibrated action.
For the youth, Baby Bear isn’t about hustle. It’s about leverage.
You don’t need another productivity hack. You need placement. Proximity. Proof.
Here’s what that looks like:
- Engineer credibility, not just visibility.
Don’t just build in public, build in a way that compels trust. “I solved a problem and here’s how it performs in the wild” beats “I made a thing” every time. - Ditch diary content. Teach as you build.
Instead of “What I learned today,” try “What most beginners get wrong and how to fix it.” Give tools, not updates. - Publish friction.
Share what failed before it worked. The struggle-to-solution arc builds credibility faster than polished wins. - Open-source your thinking.
Whether it’s a campaign, app, or memo, document the method, not just the outcome. Share real frameworks. That’s what sticks. - Pitch your value like ROI.
Don’t list tasks, show consequences.
Not “Led a workshop,” but “Designed training that boosted adoption by 60% in two weeks.”
Turn vague roles into verbs with results. - Design your career like a product.
Think UX. Think proof.
Build one living link (Notion, Spline, Webflow) with your top 3 projects, metrics, and a 2-minute video intro.
Create a public learning trail: the 5 toughest problems you’ve solved and what they taught you. Frame it like a user journey, not a diary.
What Now?
You could blame the system. Many do. But in this market, blame is cheap and leverage is rare. Instead, pause and ask the better question: “What kind of readiness gets rewarded?”
That’s where we live.
At ARLLS, the All Round Leadership Learning System, we’re not in the business of chasing trends. We design for what endures because the future of work won’t reward those who know the most, but those who can translate knowledge into action across tools, teams, and uncertainty.
If you’re responsible for preparing young people to thrive in this evolving world of work, we can help.
Our modules address exactly the kind of skills this article highlights, skills that are often underdeveloped but essential. From Career Building and Communications to Creativity, Resilience, and Influence, ARLLS offers a practical, proven framework to equip youth with not just credentials but capability.
Explore our module library to see how your institution can bridge the gap between education and employability, with lasting impact. One more thing, join our community and subscribe to our newsletter, where we unpack today’s issues for tomorrow’s world.
Works Cited:
- College Board Report (2024) College Board. Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024. College Board, 2024, https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/Trends-in-College-Pricing-and-Student-Aid-2024-ADA.pdf.
- Fuller, Joseph B., and William R. Kerr (2023). “How Important Is a College Degree Compared to Experience?” Harvard Business Review, 28 Feb. 2023, https://hbr.org/2023/02/how-important-is-a-college-degree-compared-to-experience.
- OECD Education GPS (2025). Education Policy Outlook: Education GPS. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2025, https://gpseducation.oecd.org/revieweducationpolicies/#!node=41705&filter=all.
- World Bank Report (2018) World Bank. Student Financing of Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective. World Bank, 2018, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/743841468185932855/pdf/105613-REVISED-PUBDATE-5-20-16-PUBLIC.pdf.
