You don't think, somewhere along the line, that the military concluded that officers (with college degrees) are MORE valuable than guys without degrees? What would one conclude by looking at military pay scales (aka value)?
I could never, in the current day, advise a youngster to NOT get a degree, if they have the aptitude to successfully complete it. 17-22 year olds don't know what life is about, and to start closing doors on their opportunity before they figure out what they want to do is limiting.
I believe the numbers in our State, with a crappy anti-education legislature, are something like only 4/10 high school students will continue to college, and only 1/10 will complete a 4 year degree. My daughter is 2.5 years into college, and based on a conversation with her where we discussed her high school classmates, those numbers sound true. Many didn't go to college, and of those that did, most of them have "transferred", or are "sitting out a semester", or some other story that lead us to believe they are done with school.