First of all, Billings is nowhere near any of the current or probable future oil activity. The cost of living in Billings is irrelevant. In fact, it is likely that, unless you own a house already, the cost of living in or near the active oil activity actually exceeds New York City. Rent for a house or apartment can run several thousands of dollars, if you can even find one. There are entire families living year-round in camper trailers, and paying $1500/mo for the privilege of parking it somewhere. Or, you can live in a man-camp, which while cheaper, is basically the equivalent of an army barracks, where you get a bed and meals. Or, you could commute 2-3 hours each way, each day if you like, which lowers your cost of living, but have fun with that during the winter.
It's an extremely hard lifestyle. There's a reason North Dakota has thousands and thousands of unfilled jobs. Much of it is dangerous, back-breaking physical labor for 12-16 hours a day, which you have to perform whether it's 100 degrees or 30 below zero.
What the article doesn't really mention is future earning potential. $40K doesn't look bad when you are 19, but if you are late 30s with a house and kids and are still doing physical work and a 3 hour commute everyday it doesn't look so good.
I would still be reasonably confident that if you have a chance to do a good degree from a good school your outlook is a heck of a lot better than that.
Of course the future is never clear, but that is as much a risk for people who don't go to college to those who do.
Statistically, you see a correlation of less risk by going to college because only people who fit a certain mould are able to go to college at all. For example, those with certain disabilities will be unable to study in school, and will also struggle in the workplace, which skews interpretations of the data in interesting ways.
Keep in mind that the college educated make up about 20-25% of the population. The unemployment rate is around 7%. That means that the vast majority of the population are employed just fine without degrees, and many are making decent incomes at that.
I get the feeling that you feel they have no road ahead without a degree, which I don't quite understand.
I would wager that you are more likely to get a job as a graduate that will provide you with useful experience.
A huge number of non grad jobs don't pay too bad by the standards of a younger person but really don't give the sorts of experience that help one get ahead.
I know smart people who skipped college to work retail and 10 years on are still pulling not much more than minimum wage. With a reasonable degree they would certainly have had more options open to them.
I have never been able to find evidence that the 25% of the population made up of those with degrees fare better than the top 25% of the population without degrees. But since we are going on gut feelings here, my gut tells me that you will find no discernible difference between the two groups.
In my experience in the UK it really depends on what you are applying for, here the biggest companies tend to pay the best salaries and the biggest companies don't tend to like (for example) self taught developers.
If you look at job listings here for programmers a degree will be a requirement for more than 50% and they won't waive this because you have an impressive github.
Another big plus for having a degree is that it makes getting a VISA easier thus giving more options. Also there is also the advantage that by being in college/uni you will meet people who have the "right background" which can help in job search.
For example the father of one student in our CS class asked his son to tell him who the best 10 programmers in that year were and more or less hired them on the spot at graduation.
What I am saying in essence though is not "get a degree" vs "don't get a degree" but rather that saying "don't get a degree because you will be $X richer in 4 years time" seems like a rather weak argument.
Since I am not familiar with the employment landscape in the UK, I am going to have to take your word for the satiation there. However, since this article is US-based, I do not feel that your picture paints the employment situation in the US in the proper light. Formal education does not have that kind of relevance on the western side of the pond.
A few points come to mind: (1) Access to money makes going to school and finding work easier. (2) A "go-getting" attitude makes successful completion of college and finding work easier. (3) Living in the right location (namely cities) makes going to college and finding work easier. (4) Simply being lucky makes the successful competition of college and finding work easier.
If you could find two people who are exactly equal in every single way, except the piece of paper in hand, would you find any employability differences between them? I'm highly skeptical that you would.
The vast, vast majority of people do not go to prestigious schools (if they did, those schools would no longer be prestigious, in some sense).
Additionally, these same people often lack social connections that, regardless of what people claim, are often key to getting into a good career track.
The whole "useful degree" argument also fails to hold water. Not everyone has the predisposition or personality to be an engineer. Those people have to do something. Most of the things they are able to do pay very little. So for these people, the chance to make $40k per year for a few years might be quite appealing.
So yes, if you just graduated from MIT with a technical degree and/or your parents are reasonably well-connected, then you are probably doing OK. Everyone else is struggling.
Stop pretending this isn't the case, entitlement isn't an attractive personality trait.
I also live somewhere that is about is far away from Silicon Valley economically (and geographically) as you can be in the developed world at least.
There are plenty of useful things you can study that aren't engineering.
You will also note that generations of North Americans raised their family this way. Certainly not the easiest life, but definitely doable.
So it is the value of that which should be compared against the value of college. The article doesn't seem to put a lot of mention to this.
The thing about cost of living adjustments to salaries is that sacrificing a standard of living to save more money is much easier in high cost of living areas.