As unemployment continues to cast its shadow across the country's present and future, young people poised to become the first in their family to go to college are asking themselves whether an expensive degree really is the smart choice.

Here we are, 15 years after a movement to promote college to qualified low-income and minority students got under way, and many of the very people who were supposed to be empowered by that degree are out of work. Of all young adults with degrees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17 percent are unemployed or not seeking work.

"People are starting to lose their faith in the promise of college as being the way out of poverty and the way to create a better life," said Phil Jackson, executive director of the Black Star Project, a Chicago nonprofit that has been on the front lines of college access efforts since its inception in 1996.

"The families I come into contact with look around them, see the degreed professionals in their communities who sacrificed so much to go to college and are now sitting at home unemployed," he told me. "They're no longer believing the hype about college being the path to a better life. They say, 'You can be just as unemployed without a degree.' "

I called Jackson on a hunch that headlines were scaring away the very people who could best influence a young student to take a shot at college: parents.

He shocked me with this first-hand account: "For months we have been promoting Saturday morning college preparation sessions that give families the opportunity to talk one-on-one with colleges and university academic and financial aid representatives from across the country. I had one school tell me, 'Bring us your qualified students, we are willing to sign them up on the spot.' We promised them a good turnout, screamed about the opportunity from the rafters, and do you know how many families came out? Not one person showed up."

Jackson's observations seem to back up data showing that faith in a college degree as a sure ticket to a prosperous future is eroding. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that in a survey of 3,000 people "63.5 percent said a college education is still a good financial investment for young adults given rising costs, compared to 79.1 percent last year and 80.9 percent in 2008."

There are more opportunities for those who attain a college degree or professional certification compared with those who immediately join the work force in low-paying unskilled jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2009, the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent for high school graduates but just 5.2 percent for those with bachelor's degrees. Median weekly earnings for college grads were $1,025, compared with $626 for high school grads. Even after you figure in the cost of repaying student loans, it works out in subsequent earning years.

Unfortunately, those figures don't speak much to a low-income family that has to decide whether to encourage their student to embrace the completely unknown quantity of college. The tradeoff between finding a job after high school and earning a small income today in exchange for taking out frighteningly large student loans on the promise of more money and opportunities later -- if the kid graduates -- is a difficult decision for a family with no college experiences.

For years, scholars have known that family influence is the most important factor in determining whether a student will go to college. As parents lose faith in the higher education system, at least a solution to the problem is clear. In the quest to get academically capable, low-income students into and through college, it's more important than ever to reach into the home to explain the long-term, lifetime monetary and non-monetary value of a degree to families with no college experience.

Regardless of higher education's many broken promises, there can be no doubt that when students and families question whether a college degree is a good investment, the answer is yes, in the long-term, a solid education will pay untold dividends.