If a majority have a college degree, has the value of a degree declined?

Jeremy Paxman writes for the Financial Times:

Expansion of the university sector has destroyed its status

Once upon a time, the clever young person who worked hard, got a good degree and was rewarded with a job at a decent university felt they had achieved a certain status in society. They might not be especially well-paid, but life among the sherry and corduroy jackets was congenial, and worthy of respect.

Fewer seem to feel like that any more. Almost every aspect of what was once thoughtlessly called The Establishment has suffered a calamitous loss of esteem. But the changing status of academia is a real puzzle. “The old autonomous institution at the pinnacle of the state is no more. The Republic of Scholars is just a rhetorical phrase,” says the head of one Oxbridge college, explaining part of their unhappiness.