It is college commencement time in Colorado and across the county.

What should be a time of celebration of new beginnings — of commencing one’s new life outside of academia — is yet another reminder of the divisions, intolerance and incivility in our land. 

This season also provides a chance to examine the many challenges facing higher education causing Americans to lose confidence in this institution. The four-year university’s slow descent into irrelevancy is prodding a substantial number of young people to jump off the degree conveyor belt. 

Higher education has two primary purposes beyond turning piles of money into bonfires.

The first is to prepare students to have the knowledge, skills and training to pursue a satisfying career that can lead to a family-sustaining income and financial independence. 

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The second is to have the smarts and curiosity to become an energetic, participating citizen in our republic, to engage in the issues of the day, to critically evaluate the best path forward and to vote accordingly.  

There are problems on both fronts. 

Let’s take the latter part first. 

The current unrest across the country is just the latest manifestation of the intolerant, malignant left that has eroded academic life, and the exchange of ideas, for decades.   

While some boneless wonders have bent to the coercion of protesters and made the tragic decision to deprive thousands of good people of their college graduation ceremony this year, others have kept the ceremony while kicking commencement speakers to the curb who might trigger the antisemitic snowflakes.

My own alma mater, Dickinson College — a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania — caved into the mob and uninvited its commencement speaker just weeks before the ceremony. Michael Smerconish, a fixture in Philadelphia media for decades and a longtime CNN host and commentator, was booted because, in his words, some students at the college “surgically selected” quotes from a 20-year-old book. In their view, Smerconish, in writing about airline security policy in the years immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, condoned racial profiling. 

Ironically, Smerconish’s speech, which he said was finished when he was uninvited, focused on the need for people with divergent views to “mingle,” stressing the importance of restoring civility and compromise in public discourse. 

This seemingly never-ending parade of non-leftists being denied the right to be heard, along with a well-worn menu of other asininity, has created a significant crisis of confidence in higher education that predates, and will extend beyond, the current campus problems. 

A Gallup study released last summer chronicled the cratering of support for higher education, dropping to just 36% — down from 57% in 2015. According to Gallup, the soaring cost of and resulting debt load from a four-year degree is a cause, as well as the ever-deepening politicization on campus. 

Young Americans are voting with their feet.

A report by the National Student Clearinghouse, a research organization, showed there are 1 million empty seats in higher education classrooms compared to just five years ago. Yet vocationally oriented community colleges are experiencing solid enrollment increases, with programs for mechanics, construction workers and chefs growing by double digits.

There are several understandable factors.

Young people increasingly want a solid, reliable, practical career path, producing the satisfaction of real, tangible results day to day. Many media stories report they believe there is prestige in coming home dirty, having built something. 

And if they are entrepreneurial, they can take their skill, without shouldering huge student loans, start their own business and live the American dream. These folks, chasing life, don’t have time to be woke.

They are also doing Colorado and other states a service by pursuing the training to fill jobs employers have been struggling to fill. 

The Common Sense Institute recently studied the gap between workforce needs and the students K-12 and higher-education systems produce. Though the report shows more than 70% of jobs require some post-secondary education or training, it recognizes success doesn’t require you punch a ticket with a four-year bachelor’s degree.

The lesson for higher education this commencement season is young Americans have the same dreams they have always had, of building an independent satisfying life in the way they feel called to do. Though college was once the gateway to that life, it’s now becoming an old pockmarked wall to walk around on your journey forward.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.