The job market is booming for young people – but not those with college degrees. Are employers finally coming to realize that colleges these days mainly produce coddled, know-nothing, whiny, entitled brats?

A recent analysis from Burning Glass Institute found that unemployment among those 22-34 years old without a college degree is lower than it’s been in decades, but those with college diplomas are having a much harder time finding work than before.

“For most of the past two decades, the two groups largely tracked each other, in good economic times and bad, the Wall Street Journal reported. “Now, though, just as job hunters without degrees are having one of their best runs, those with college educations are having one of their worst.”

The Journal says that AI is contributing to this unprecedented education divergence in job prospects, because companies are replacing entry-level white-collar jobs with AI just as colleges churn out more graduates than ever. At the same time, the shortage of skilled workers is making it hard to replace the many who are now retiring.

Employers are finding that degree holders today lack basic workplace skills but are very adept at complaining about corporate practices, staging walkouts, and embarrassing their employer on social media, when not demanding loan forgiveness.

There clearly is a mismatch. But this isn’t exactly new. The oversupply of college graduates and lack of skilled workers has been a long-time problem. Former “Cheers” star John Ratzenberger, for example, has been raising the alarm about skilled worker shortages for decades.

So why is it affecting employment opportunities now?

Here’s a clue.

A Columbia University professor recently won a national book award for a volume arguing that white paint is racist. We kid you not.

“I discovered numerous examples of the way that it figured into systems of erasure, exclusion, violence, and the masking of power in the social and natural world,” said author Wendy Walters.

This is just the latest of a mountain of examples of how disconnected colleges have become from reality and why they are churning out ignorant leftists by the truckload. Universities are stuffed with professors like Walters, who think that complaining about the color of paint counts as academic research.

Students who attend most colleges today get a steady diet of leftist propaganda about how terrible the U.S. is, how evil free markets are, and the wonders of Marxism. Polls consistently show that the more time spent in college, the more likely people are to be socialists.

In a normal market, such problems would be quickly resolved. The supply and demand of academically trained workers would balance out. The relative value of a college education would be part of the cost-benefit calculations.

But college isn’t a normal market. It’s one that has been wildly distorted by massive amounts of public aid — $155 billion in federal aid last year alone. According to the College Board, the average amount of per-undergraduate college aid has doubled in the past two decades, even after accounting for inflation.

Young people are repeatedly told that they have no future if they don’t have a college degree. Colleges lower entrance requirements and create phony majors to accept as many as they can. And students are told not to worry about costs because they can get loans that – they are also told – they’ll probably never have to repay.

Massive government subsidies let colleges raise tuition far ahead of the inflation rate, knowing they will never be held accountable for wasting taxpayer money. Students end up strapped with debt, holding worthless degrees, and facing diminishing career prospects.

The current lack of job prospects for college graduates is a painful but long-overdue correction.

But the underlying problem will continue so long as the federal government showers $155 billion a year in taxpayer money to subsidize colleges.

Until that’s resolved, the cycle will continue.

Issues & Insights Editorial Board