…that the college tuition bubble is about to burst.
No scam can survive indefinitely. Unless, of course, the government continues to support it, at our expense.
5 thoughts on “Eight Reasons”
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…that the college tuition bubble is about to burst.
No scam can survive indefinitely. Unless, of course, the government continues to support it, at our expense.
Comments are closed.
A nit pick…”ice BURG”. I guess this shows the quality of that bubblicious education. Otherwise a good article. It would be a great article if it showed parents and prospective students how to evaluate the ROI of a college education vs. technical/vocational training.
I wonder sometimes if we wouldn’t have been better served with something akin to the German model, where only professionals go to University while most others go to trade school. Instead we’ve turned University into trade school and now nobody can get a decent job without a bachelor’s degree, and even then it’s kinda iffy. Then business expects you to go get your masters if you want to get any kind of decent promotion.
The problem is, if the bubble bursts it won’t be making education affordable for the masses, it will be devaluing education further to the point of meaninglessness.
The article does not mention that the average monetary value of a college degree — the increase in lifetime earnings between the average college grad and the average non-grad — is much larger than the cost of college, and growing. And then there’s the security — the unemployment rate for college grads is much lower than for those who did not go to college.
As long as the market is willing to pay so handsomely for diplomas, people will pay whatever it takes to get them.
I don’t think there’s a problem with too many people going to college. As our society has grown more complex people need more education. My grandfather grew up in rural Oklahoma 100 years ago and was unusual in his community for having a high school diploma. Now most people go to college. That’s just the continuation of a trend that’s been going on a long time.
I do have a problem with the ridiculous inflation in college costs for the past forty years. I wonder what percentage of their staff are directly involved in education. It’s probably pretty low. Not to mention all those gorgeous new buildings. I’d love to see an accounting of how much a typical school spends per student and how much of it actually goes to expenses directly related to education and research.
Education has suffered similarly to healthcare once the government got involved. It is only natural for any institution with a steady stream of guaranteed money to soften their diligence for spending their income wisely.
The government had great and admirable intentions with education, but their implementation suffered and rather than make prudent corrections when the effects of their involvement did not produce results, they instead threw more money at it. Why would a college keep their tuition rates competitive when a significant portion of students are there on student loans that the government guarantees against default?
Going back to healthcare, the government (and health insurance) decided not to cover certain procedures, such as Lasik. In the past two decades, the cost of Lasik has decreased by an order of magnitude. You won’t find any government-subsidized medical procedure that has stayed with the rate of inflation, much less dropped in price.
I believe good things would happen to education at all levels if the government would simply get out of the way and set the market free to work its magic.