Higher education

The college-cost calamity

Many American universities are in financial trouble

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Readers' comments



If someone wants to study liberal arts, let them do it on their own dime. Not a cent in loans from the government.
The government has a responsibility to its taxpayers not to waste the money they give it. Government-funded education should be viewed as an investment in the nation's economy with no small effect on national security. A major with a track record of relatively poor return (i.e., taxes collected) compared to the money spent on four years of college should not burden taxpayers.
Asking the government to subsidize one's "personal growth" is analogous to demanding that it pay for your plastic surgery.
STEM majors should be getting 100% free rides (contingent upon making good grades). The best among them should be *paid* to attend college.
Tying the loan process to choice of major would go a long way in cutting the flab at colleges.

ltut in reply to Ebdebebbede

This is a completely inaccurate and shallow understanding of how businesses and governments work and what types of people they need. The one element that unites all businesses is that they are selling a product to people and that people are making those products. Many of the best analysts and consultants are NOT STEM majors, but individuals who come from a broad liberal arts or social sciences background. For example, if you need to analyze why a certain product does not appeal to particular market- such as why selling hamburgers may not be a good idea in India...you need someone who is good at analyzing cultural attitudes, knows how to handle sensitive cultural issues, is aware of dynamics within a society such as gender roles, income roles, child rearing roles (list is endless...). All of these things are often extremely important to producing successful products and successful government programming. They all require a liberal arts of social science background which is often broader in the amount of subjects in includes. If you have a bunch of engineers and chemists making things nobody needs, than all them will likely be unemployed. Don't get caught up in the hype that science is a 'safe' labor market. It is not as true as many people make it out to be.

ltut in reply to Ebdebebbede

What makes you think China is 'run' by engineers? Many of those engineers are actually 'run by expats. Many Western companies are still forced to import expats or Chinese individuals who were educated abroad because Chinese universities heavily feature on simple memorizing with little or no analytics or problem solving. Such skills are best taught in non-STEM classes and feature prominently in management in logistics. Additionally, I think you are confusing economic success with societal success. China is has issues of human rights violations, judicial review, corruption, and environmental degredation. It is by no means an ideal model of success.

Christina0216 in reply to Ebdebebbede

Again, very narrow-minded. China has a GDP per capita of about 4000. The U.S. has a GDP per capita of 48000. Do you think they should have the same growth pace? Do you think China will keep on growing 9% after it hits the middle-income wall?
Plus, inteligent people succeed and contribute regardless of major, and stupid people don't become more intelligentand usefull because they've chosen science as major. There are many successful business people with music or social science degrees. They just used the degree to enter the job market.

LexHumana in reply to ltut


It may not be "safe", but it certainly is "safer" than graduating with degree in art history or philosophy. And I know whereof I speak: as an undergraduate, I double-majored in Philosophy and Sociology (which essentially made me twice as useless in the conventional labor market). Thank god I went to law school, because otherwise I would have been an unemployed hippie for the past two decades.

iThinker in reply to ltut

Our society will always need the following 3 kinds of talents:
1) those who are good with numbers
2) those who are creative or artistically talented
3) those who are good with people
Most jobs can be done by people who possess one or more of the above talents, for e.g. Marketing can be done by someone good with numbers who can gather and analyze statistics, working with a good artist to create attractive packaging, and someone with good people skills to sell it. The irony is, too often those who earn a degree in Marketing are morons who possess none of the above talents.
Those who possess one or more of these talents will always find work, regardless of their education background. Those with none of the above skills/talents are the ones unemployed and hurting in this economy, regardless of their education background.

Puntmeister in reply to Ebdebebbede

This would seem to be the easiest and most effective way to enduce a shift in higher education towards more productive graduates.

Provide government educational subsides based on national-level supply/demand.

Not enough doctors? Subsidize medical degrees.

Not enough computer programmers? Subsidize computer sciences.

No demand whatsoever for art historians? Zero subsidies for art history majors.

Additional nuances could be put in place: Limit subsidies to education, and basic accomadations. Wanna play intra-mural volleyball? Pay for a gym membership yourself.

Puntmeister in reply to ltut

Actually, you just need someone who knows that Hindus don't eat beef.


Puntmeister in reply to Christina0216

Historically, I agree - but the job market is becoming tougher and tougher. It is becoming increasingly difficult for liberal arts majors to land corporate (or government) entry-level career oriented jobs.

Also - stupid people who chose science as a major don't graduate. You can't BS your way through an engineering exam.

There is also another flaw in the greater system which you unwittingly allude to: many people succeed in business with a music degree. True. But, in a rational world, would they NEED a music degree? What is the fundamental value of a music degree to a businessman? Fact is - the degree has no fundamnetal value, beyond its 'entry-ticket to the club' value.

China is run by engineers today, and doing well. On the other hand, in the not to distant past it was run by engineers and did terribly.

What I take from this is that China is more open-minded about what kind of training might be appropriate for those who run the country. Where the West seems to have "decided" that lawyers are the right people, other places have other ideas. It may be one of the places where we would do well to learn from elsewhere.

Christina0216 in reply to Puntmeister

What i was trying to say is that there is no such thing as a "winner" major and a "loser" major, there are winners and losers in every major. As I've said, some people use their degrees as an entry ticket to the job market, and succeed thanks to their own talent. So, whoever is able to beat the competition in their own major should get scholarships, not only science majors. Of course science is very important and usefull, but it's not everything, we need also people with other skills. To increase scholarships to science majors and to end it for social science majors would lower the bar and give a free-ride to not so bright engineers and doctors and exclude brilliant and usefull social thinkers.
I chose to study sociology over economics because I was accepted in a top university. Certainly, sociology didn't help me get a job, but I'm fluent in four languages, good at math and statistics, have a good notion of economics and have good social skills, this combined with a degree from a top university helped me get a great job. One of my co-workers is a Julliard graduate, she's talented and intelligent. I think a Julliard degree shows that you are hard working and perfectionist, that's why she got the job.
Many jobs you can only learn doing it, so it doesn't matter what major you are. In those cases, companies pay attention to the university name and other traits and talents you possess, not the major.

ltut in reply to Puntmeister

This actually wouldn't make smart economic sense as the short-term supply of doctors would be inaffected by subsidizing medical degrees when there was already not enough doctors. In reality, to do this you would need a highly speculative agency which would effectively try to run a futures market on all career paths choosing which one to subsidize. The result would be that you suffered a shortage of doctors, you would subsidize medical degrees, flood the market with doctors in 7-10 years (when everyone you subsidized graduates), then effectively create excess supply as the market is unlikely to be able to absorb all them immediately. Also, if you got an estimation wrong, you have officially just created unemployed graduates with 'worthless' degrees for which there is no demand

iThinker in reply to ltut

There will always be demand for doctors. The current prediction is that the US alone will be short 100,000 doctors by 2025. The current barrier to a medical degree is not just money and time, but a signficant shortage of aptitude and good work ethnic among our youth. Doctors on average have the highest IQ among the general population, and for a good reason. I've known many a would be pre-med majors who dropped out after 1 or 2 years because they couldn't handle all the work, especially when all their friends, the business and libart majors, are busy partying in the dorm/frat house.

Rob S in reply to ltut

Or you can forget the often useless marketing studies that are generated around new products and use a trial by error approach - introduce a product and see what happens. That seems to work equally well, or better. You would be hard-pressed to identify an innovative high tech product that was the result of a market study. It is very hard to figure out what is needed and what not before the fact.

Hamburgers sell very well in India, btw.


Of course this bubble will burst. If we have learned nothing from the previous two bubbles (dot-com and housing), surely we should have learned this: if something cannot go on forever, then it will not go on forever.


The emphasis needs to be on getting employable skills, and away from getting a college education.

Too many graduates complete their studies with skills that are of little employable value. I completed a Mathematics, Economics, and Mathematics degree, then a M.A. in Economic Policy Analysis and Teacher College education (I live in Ontario Canada, where its impossible to find even substitute work) I currently work at a call center for a cell phone company. I know tsunamis of individuals in my position; call centers, parking lot attendants, barristers at Star Bucks, the list never ends. The trades need to be re branded and glorified to encourage young naive students from shying away from the perceived inferior class status of a tradesman.

Policy analysts need to seriously reconsider the types of courses they're willing to subsidize by the public. Let courses which aren't likely to leave grads with employable skills die off, it's heart breaking for too many who graduate and realize they are no more employable after university then when they finished high school. It does the public and the individual no service.

GSamsa in reply to Salutations

"Kid follows their lead and graduates with an extraordinary debt load and few job prospects."

I think this rather brilliantly sums up the problem nowadays.

All of these posts are valid observations of the PAST situation and environment, but not of the CURRENT situation: Too many people. Too many people with degrees. Not enough jobs with globalization taking away jobs.

This whole graduating with a lot of debt wouldn't be a problem if today's college grads can find a good paying job to pay it all off like their Parents, or even Grandparents did, but how does one do that with the few companies hiring these days being facetiously selective about who they hire, that's when they aren't outsourcing jobs overseas, or preferring to import immigrants that they can underpay and overwork.

And you can't say: "Oh, they should've majored in a STEM, or had more employable skills." For starters from someone who works in recruiting, that's a bit bunk. They certainly can, they just have to accept that they will never work as an Economist or a Philosopher. Not unless they are willing to move to a part of their country, or even another country where jobs for them are in plenty and are in demand.

The problem i'm seeing is from picky, picky companies. the companies that only hire from "top-tier" schools. Even though the Harvard grad may be far less qualified than the State school grad. The company that would rather import the software engineer from the Phillippines (or outsource it there) because they don't want to pay the $70k annually with benefits if they hire a local? Or the Law Firm that would rather contract $15/hr for the recent law school grad to do tons case work for 18 hours a day, essentially the only job, other than internships a recent law grad can get? Especially if they didn't go to an "top-tier" school?

Some had said and will say: "major in a Blue-Collar trade or profession". Great. If there were any tradesmen jobs still left. Last time I check, most trades are becoming obsolete or being outsourced abroad, or handed over to immigrants who'll work for cheap. To a teenager learning a trade and considering skipping college for it, what's the incentive then?

While there is plenty wrong with academia, should we be blaming the schools and the students, or as Bob Dylan correctly put: "the times they are a changing" indeed.

Puntmeister in reply to GSamsa

I agree, in part, the changing nature of the global workforce is a key culprit.

However, Universities have done little to nothing to adjust to the new normal. Instead, they have continued to jack up tuitions, and have continued to market useless degrees.

In decades past, even an arts history major could land a decent corporate position (assuming they were willing to 'sell-out' and work for the 'man'..) - a college degree in and of itself was enough to justify being hired. This is no longer true - but you won't here that from University admission officers. Naive teenagers end up being ripped off. Shame on the Universities.

Mind_the_Gap in reply to GSamsa

Exactly. If employers treated all degrees the same maybe things would be different but they don't. Everyone wants prestige. What is the use of going to a mid-tier institution if you cant get an interview because they only hire from the "top-tier." And brand-name schools know they have near-unlimited pricing power because the demand for brand in the market, esp. private firms, is infinity. Everyone is a snob.


I am currently a student at Case Western Reserve University (hence the name youngspartan). The cost of attending is $56,491 including travel, spending money, books, tuition, ect. Even with $25,000 in scholarship money it is still $31,492 to attend. fortunately my parents have agreed to help me out with the money so I do not need to take loans for the first few years, but many people do not have that luxury. Several of my high school classmates had to turn down going to schools like Penn, Vanderbilt, Brown, Harvard, and others because the cost was outrageous.

Federal loans have driven up the price of college, but there has to be some solution to this problem. one thing may be that everybody isn't mean to go to college. Some of my high school classmates were not college material, but because a college degree is a "necessity" they are going anyway. It is a waste of time for people to go to college just to become a truck driver or factory worker. Those are good jobs, but they do not require a college degree. While nobody wants to hear that they are not "college material", that may be what is needed to drive cost down. Doing this decreases demand which lowers costs.

shubrook in reply to youngspartan

Good points. I think another problem was the bursting of the housing bubble. Up until 2008 parents could tap into home equity to pay the inflated costs. That the home equity has gone, but the loans remain, might explain why the diploma industry has looked ready to pop for several years.

J.p.morgan in reply to youngspartan

You are right about that ,in my point of view,high education is an investment for youself ,you have to put both the earnings and risk into consideration together,not every college students get good pay jobs.

youngspartan in reply to J.p.morgan

there is also the idea that maybe having dual study programs in high schools like Germany could encourage many students who are not college material to pursue those blue collar jobs. Blue collar jobs are not bad, especially in the US where they consist of things like working in an automated factory, a mechanic, driving a truck, or being a police officer. Encouraging non-college level students to take those jobs lowers demand and alleviates a lot of pressure on school prices. There are plenty of those jobs available in the US today. Those jobs do require training, but the training to be a mechanic is more in line with a mechanic's salary than a college degree for an engineer who ends up as a mechanic.

Also a lot of kids graduate and then they have mountains of debt built up that take years to pay off. You can't even declare bankruptcy to wipe it away, because student loans stay with you until either you die or they are paid in full. So you have a college graduate with a $40,000 a year job who has $200,000 in debt and still has to pay for living expenses. You don't need to be a math major to realize that would take roughly 40 years to pay off (assuming you never get a raise relative to inflation and you pay $5000 a year off principal balance).

Something has to be done. One of my buddies who was roughly a C student in high school said it to me best. "I aint gonna get through college, so I am going to fire academy to become a fireman. The pay is good, the training isn't super expensive, and I won't have a ton of debt to pay off. Plus I will have a job when I finish."


Wait a second.... what happened to the good old, supply and demand. The article fails to provide the tiny little piece of information that this "bubble" is happening at the same time that the amount of of college age kids are higher than normal.

It also fails to add the detail that in bad economic times people tend to go to college more. In my state they are plenty of people willing to pay the money to go to those schools. Specially from China and Asia. There is an abundance of people asking for educational services and there is not an abundance of available college spots.

So if there is an excess of demand... why is everybody thinking there is something wrong with the higher education prices?

Oh, it also forgot that every single parent now believes that their little angel "deserves" to have a high paying job when they grow up, and that the way to get to that job is to spend the money on college.

Again supply and demand isn't?

Well.... and there is the other aspect that in general the economies of western countries were very highly over valued and that, now, the reality of those economies do not fit with the expectations of their citizens. In other words if a degree is not paying off, maybe it is just that the economies do not provide the economical space for those skills to be valuable anyway..?

mb2bm55 in reply to alejoacr

The problem is exactly supply and demand, though in the complete opposite sense that you imply. The issue is federal college subsidies. While meaning well (and hind sight is 20/20 so pointing fingers here is pointless) the college subsidies have only inflated prices by artificially increasing demand. Demand is not the number of people that are willing and want to attend college but its the number of people moderated by their capacity to pay, something greatly inflated by student loans. The result is similar to the housing bubble in which there is a lot of essentially 'cheap' money flying around for colleges to borrow through their students, and they have become more concerned about their brand names rather than their mission statement. Further more this only puts a heavy debt burden on the youngest sector of the workforce, significantly paralyzing them and delaying the development of small business', the housing and home ownership markets and indirectly heavily inflating the cost of healthcare (and hurting the poor in turn- opposite of the intended effect of the student loan system). Additionally student loans are risky so the high default rate hurts the economy and translates over to negatively effecting the entire student borrowing community

The solution: Force Universities to be guaranteurs on all loans that they accept for each year the student is enrolled. This would force them to actually work to achieve higher graduation rates (there-by making loans cheaper and less risky) as opposed to just focusing on enrollment rates. I'm also a big believer in price regulation of any industry that receives federal subsidization and is not a fundamentally fair supply and demand market (education and healthcare are two that come to mind). Set price ceilings for both housing and enrollment for even private institutions in order to benefit the economy. If tuition and housing costs were capped the effects would revitalize the economy drastically. Lets get these numbers down to 1980 levels (it would also be a big step towards improving healthcare costs in this country)

Supply and demand leads to efficient pricing only if there are knowledgeable buyers who understand what they are buying. It is not entirely clear that this applies to purchasers of higher education these days. Witness the number of people who think that a college education will pay for itself, without any idea what they might do with that education once they have it.

iThinker in reply to alejoacr

This is a good question and it's really quite astounding to me that, at the same time most American middle class families are finding college unaffordable, more and more middle class families in the developing world are able to afford our schools. Does this speak to the deteriorating standard of living for America's middle class aka the goose that lay the golden egg (we buy most of what the rest of the world produces)? Where is this trend leading?


I foresee more and more American students pursuing degrees outside the US. As an American who completed a Bachelor's degree in Australia and a Master's degree in the UK I can tell you with education costs as they are in the US today going abroad for most people is by far the most sensible option. First of all, the quality of education you receive at any reputable university in other English speaking countries (and many non-English speaking countries as well) is on par with the quality you will receive at any reputable American institution. Secondly, in the majority of the world it takes 3 as opposed to 4 years to complete a Bachelor's so straight away that is a massive amount taken off your final bill. Finally, the cost per year including travel and living expenses is substantially lower than what you'd pay at almost any university in the US. By doing my undergrad in Australia I saved about $60 - 70 thousand dollars and about $20k on my Master's.

SamED in reply to jouris - old account

Couldn't agree more. It is impossible to place a monetary value on everything I learned and experienced just by living in different countries. Most Americans have a rather introverted world view and this could certainly help change that.

ltut in reply to SamED

SamED I also chose to leave the US to obtain a Masters. I have completed my Master's at a Swiss university for almost nothing (65 CHF a semester) in order to offset obtaining my Bachelor's in the US (though I managed to do mine in three years to save money as well). There is one downside to working abroad, and that is that the current economic crisis has pretty much hit everywhere. It is difficult to find jobs in most OCSE countries right now, and working permits and visas are proving difficult to obtain. I completely agree with you that you learn an incredible amount from living abroad, and I am doing everything possible to not have to return to the US. I hope more students will start looking at univrsities abroad as a real opportunity to lower the cost of their education and to broaden their perspectives.

SamED in reply to ltut

Glad to see you enjoyed getting a degree abroad as well. As for working abroad I was trying to stay in the UK (or just about anywhere in Europe) but to be honest at this point in time employment prospects are much better in the US (much of Europe is still hemorrhaging jobs where as things are now picking up steam in the US). I did a year and a half stint at a software company in the Czech Republic before starting on my Masters which was an excellent experience.

Puntmeister in reply to ltut

Getting a University degree abroad is a great idea (I've studied and lived abroad a good bit myself). It is cheaper and, as pointed out, the experience of living/studying abroad itself has educational value.

However - working abroad? Very, very, very tough. Unless you have a specialized technical degree, you'll have a hard time finding white-collar work outside of the U.S. even in good times, let alone in these depressed economic times (Most European countries actually worse off than the US right now).

Also, for all the flaws of the American workforce market, foreign workforce markets tend to be much less flexible and open-minded.

ltut in reply to Puntmeister


So far many of my friends have been able to find jobs quite easily in Europe. I think the real keys are not so much the degree you obtain, but rather your language skills (pretty much have to speak English and either French, Spanish, or German for many jobs) and your citizenship. I have been able to obtain jobs, but the problem is really that the authorities are really unwilling to give Americans permits. They have Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Spaniards already coming in without much regulation through the Schengen agreement.

I think that actually the foreign markets are much more flexible in Europe than in the US (atleast once you obtain a position). You get atleast 4 weeks of holidays, full health insurance benefits (an obscure worry for most Europeans, but for Americans it is a gift in itself), flexible hours, and a much more relaxed working environment. I think it fares much better than the US for workers because everyone here understands the concept of work-life balance. I cant say the same for most companies in the NYC or DC.


This is indeed true, based on a fact that tuition fees for many universities in U.S have been increasing at rapid rate since last decade and here is the point where students carry out cost benefit analysis that whether their degree that cost $70,000 approx will worth the job they will get in stringent global economic times. This is something to be considered by universities administration to align their expenses in accordance with the key revenues e.g students. If ignored then it may be suspected that the core problems remains intact and hence the challenge may keep on arising.

A. Andros

Many good posts but please let me add to my earlier comments. The extortionate cost of college today is not an educational issue. What has happened (allowing for inflation) to English literature that makes it inherently more expensive to teach than a half-century ago? The physical sciences? More expensive to teach these, of course, because of required new technology. Still there is no additional cost to teaching Physics 101, so far as I can see, compared to what was needed two generations in the past. And, how, after all, can mathematics have become a more costly proposition to teach? Has Pythagoras added another fifty degrees the sum of the angles of each triangle?

The problem is political. Colleges and universities are overwhelmingly liberal. They teach the liberal line, their staffs vote the liberal ticket and their students are propagandized on liberal principles. There is a natural affinity between these institutions and the Democratic Party. Not surprisingly, then, the Democratic Party is fairly lavish in its financial treatment of Higher Education and assaults all who hold different opinions as being "anti-intellectual." It is a case of one hand washing the other.

The immense student loans (the aggregate of which now outstanding approximates $1 trillion) do not benefit the students. The student is simply a delivery mechanism to funnel federal money into left-leaning institutions. The college gets an enormous check, the student gets an enormous debt -- who really benefits from this? Is it the student?

Because the federal money spigot is open full blast, why on earth should universities control expenses? They are like the cost-plus defense contractors of the 1950s -- the more expensive they make their product the more they will earn. Cutting expenses just reduces income because students need not borrow as much -- hence, why cut expenses?

Young people are correct to rage against a system that exploits them. But, my guess is that most of them buy the party line. They are contributing to their own future personal bankruptcy.

If we want to reduce the cost of education AND lessen the burden of currently indebted students there are several steps that, if taken, would have an immediate effect.

First, tax colleges. They are NOT not-profit -- they are non-tax-paying! Then, use that revenue to fund partial forgiveness of current student balances outstanding.

Next, make the beneficiary of the student loan money -- the institution -- co-liable in the event of student default. The way things work today, the colleges get all the funds but assume none of the responsibility. The liability for repayment is simply shoved onto the shoulders of eighteen year-olds who hardly know what their earning power will be.

Finally, begin to progressively reduce -- not increase! -- federal funding of higher education via student loans. As the money stream dries up the colleges will have to either drastically reduce what they charge or go out of business. And, believe me, no tenured professor who works six hours a week, has four or five free months free a year -- plus sabbaticals -- wants to close up shop.

A few politicians, such as Christie in NJ, are starting to address the educational boondoggle. I'm afraid we're at the point, how, where only the meat-cleaver approach will work. But, if there were sufficient political will (which means public demand) then we could immediately start reducing student debt loads with tax-generated funds from colleges and universities. Then, we could reduce the burden on our young by making those who receive federal money -- the colleges -- co-liable for its repayment.

Or, we can continue on with things as they are and crush the student or the taxpayer. And, my guess is that we will crush both.

Nom Deplume in reply to A. Andros

Just one point of disagreement. The 'inherent cost' of a class is also how much it costs to provide the teacher and the facilities both things that have a continual cost increase over time. Ergo all classes 'cost more'. The key is that the 'price' charged by the schools has increased far more than the 'actual' cost of providing the class. Not to mention has definitely outpaced the increase in the income of the students and their families.

iThinker in reply to A. Andros

Agree about colleges' liberal bent and ties with the Democratic party. Also agree that federal guaranteed student loans and pell grants play a big role in inflating the bubble in college education, something I also pointed out in an earlier post. But I'm not sure taxing colleges will work. For one thing they'll just tag on the extra cost to the tuition & fees and pass that on to the students, again. It also makes the colleges solely responsible for this mess, taking away responsibility from the students and their parents, who should be wiser consumers.

Eventually, market forces will take hold and the student loan bubble will pop like the subprime loan bubble, forcing us all to become wiser consumers of higher education. In the mean time, we urgently need to start teaching Personal Finance to high school kids. Too many parents and kids sign on to loans when they have no idea how to calculate interests and future payments against income, as well as managing their own personal finances down the road. Making all high school grads financially literate will go a long way towards fixing our fiscal crisis and help prevent more such crisis down the road.

In addition, we should teach basic computer programming in high school so high school grads can at least work in low skill IT jobs like software testing, so outsourcers no longer have the excuse to only hire foreigners or offshore the work. We should also offer those less academically inclined the option of vocational ed for K11-12. As I mention they can always go on to college later, when they realize they don't want to be stuck in a dead end job etc. Older students make wiser students.

The 3rd thing to do is to do away with federal guarantees for student loans. What a dumb thing to do. We are creating the same bubble here as the subprime loans. It's what happens when you have a bunch of financially illiterate morons running the government. All the more reason why we need to teach finance in high school.

A. Andros in reply to iThinker

Yes . . . you make some excellent points. Your last paragraph in which you suggest that student loans no longer be guaranteed by the federal government would force colleges to do a bit of credit analysis on prospective students instead of just accepting whatever walks in with government loan money.

I have frequently read predictions that student loans will be the "next bubble" and, like the subprime bubble, will soon pop. But, I think we can be skeptical. When the subprime bubble imploded there was recourse for both banks and consumers. Banks foreclosed on non-performing mortgages and took possession of their collateral -- the mortgaged houses. The consumer almost always walked away from the mess debt free, if somewhat chastened. And, in fact, some consumers simply shed their liability via "strategic default" or "jingle-mail." The net result was that, painful though it may have been, Joe and Jill Six-Pack were cleared of their mortgage debt and free to start over -- albeit with a lower FICO score.

There is, however, no way out for the student. Since his college cannot repossess his education there is nothing he can give up in return for a clean start. And, since federal regulation forbids personal bankruptcy in regard to federally-guaranteed loans there is no educational equivalent of "strategic default" or "jingle mail" available to the poor young person. In short -- he is well and truly screwed and there is no way out.

I am skeptical that any court would permit a revision of the bankruptcy code, even if Congress legislated it, that permitted students to shed loans via bankruptcy if those loans were incurred under prior legislation that gave the lender legal comfort that such bankruptcy was not allowed. Again -- well and truly screwed.

I suspect that Mr. Obama, or some other liberal president, will try for "debt forgiveness" of student loans just as some of his political persuasion have lobbied for "forgiveness" of the balance by which mortgages are "underwater." This would transfer an appallingly large sum of debt onto the shoulders of the taxpayers -- but it would enable liberals to attract young votes by, in effect, permitting these former students to welch and shift the burden. But - even a liberal Congress might choke on such a transfer of wealth.

The revenue has to come from some place. The rest of us can pay it by taking over the burden of student loans. The students can pay it by lowering their standard of living for the next twenty years. And, I also suggest, colleges and universities can finally be taxed and the money used to pay down student debt. As for whether these institutions will simply raise their costs to compensate for this taxation, that depends on whether the student loan program is wound down. If it does cease to function the way it does now, the schools of higher education will just have to eat the loss of revenue via taxation.

I really do sympathize with the young people -- I consul them every day on how to avoid this crushing burden of debt. But, it is not a bubble about to burst -- it is an anvil about to break their backs.

guest-isoswwj in reply to A. Andros

I agree that most college instructors and administration are left-leaning, but that is not the reason that an education costs so much. To think that students are being fooled into entering a college as a kind of institutional ruse in order to make more money is simply not true. What has elevated the costs of a college education is bad management, pure and simple.

College administrators are often college professors who have been promoted up to their posts but who often lack the managerial training that would be a prerequisite for such in private industry. As a result, they commission the construction of new buildings for specific purposes such as a music building or a philosophy building when many of their classroom space is not being used efficiently. The urge to build is often done to assuage the feelings of important staff members who think their department has been slighted. Every time a building goes up, so does the school's debt.

In order to bolster the reputation of the school, relatively famous (within academic circles) new staff members are hired. The inducement to come to a new institution is a combination of privilege, power, and cash. Fame-building staff members come at a steep price, and this, of course, has to be funded by tuition and fees paid by students.

Finally, schools judge themselves in much the same way that automobile makers judge their own vehicles. Ford doesn't price its Lincoln model at the same price as its Fiesta model. It prices the Lincoln at a price that suggests that its reasonable competition is a Cadillac. In some respects, schools rely on Geffen's Paradox, thinking that by raising the price of tuition students will assume the school is better than a lower priced school. To a large degree it works. Applications to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and other Ivy League schools is always so large that nearly all who apply are turned away, leaving those who can meet the academic AND financial requirements for admission.

In short, academic leadership is perverse. It charges more and more for less and less, settling for a soft and relatively undemanding academic life consisting of attending a seminar here, a confab there, teaching muddle-headed students how to think, and giving all the grunt work of correcting papers and tests to teaching fellows. In exchange for this kind of softball work schedule, they harvest (in the better schools) a very generous annual salary, often a housing allowance, a pension plan of which most people can only dream, a health insurance plan that costs them little to nothing, and summer vacations that last far too long considering what they are paid. Oh yes, don't let me forget sabbaticals - those extended year long vacations during which they are invited to lecture at another institution while being paid by the host institution and the actual employer. What a life!

Johnny or Susie, however, will walk away from four years of this experience with between $70,000 to $150,000 of education debts which have to be repaid from their entry-level jobs' incomes, leaving them for the most part members of the working poor for a good five to ten years after college is nothing but a memory.

It seems that something is terribly wrong in education to allow this to persist and at the same time call it education while holding a straight face.

GSamsa in reply to A. Andros

You usually have a good argument/case going until you start peppering your posts with "Liberal" this and "PC" that. Can you just once, make a case without resorting to the typical American right-wing tripe against Liberals or in general people whom you don't disagree with? Just once?

You like talking about the "good ole days". The "good ole days" also meant having discourse with people without ad hominem attacks on Left or Right.

A. Andros in reply to GSamsa

My understanding of "ad hominem" is that it means "To the man," meaning an attack on a personality. I did not do this -- in fact, I did not mention a single person. What I DID say was that the university milieu is liberal and that this creates a community of interest between their faculties and administrations on the one hand and the Democratic Party on the other.

If I described Wall Street as profit-oriented, would that be ad hominem?

If I described the NRA is right-wing, would that be ad hominem?

Certain institutions have identifiable leanings. (Quick -- is Emily's List conservative or liberal?)

Can't stand the rhetorical heat -- kindly leave the kitchen.

GSamsa in reply to A. Andros

Did you actually read or understand anything I said, or like so many on internet forums, saw your ego under attack and proceeded to reply accordingly?

Or was I very clear in that you can make a good case without blaming everything on Liberals and/or Conservatives? Or using a argument as a launchpad to attack the Left or the Right.

Do Universities tend to be Liberal? Yes. Is Liberalism and the Democrats the problem? Hardly. User guest-isoswwj and The Economist is 100% correct. Bureaucracy and corruption and an inflated sense of worth is the problem. Not the Democrats and Liberalism. Or being PC.

The University of California Board of Regents, most of whom are Republicans, decide to raise their pay to more than most Corporate CEOs while raising tuition across the board and you think that's connected to the Democrats?

Are you suggesting with your slippery slope that if we fill the Universities with Conservatives and Republicans that they'd become paragons of virtue and thrift? Nonsense.

But this is your line of thinking:

You think Wall Street corrupt? You're a Liberal.
Disagree with the NRA? You're a Liberal.
Universities corrupt and ineffective? Liberal.

Perhaps you should stop making things so hot in the kitchen in the first place? I trust that you're an adult, an intelligent one at that, and that you don't need to?

A simple request I asked. No need to start insulting back. Or are you simply proving that Americans do not know how to argue like gentlemen anymore?

MnPhys in reply to A. Andros

A few comments on this posting:

One of the major challenges of introductory teaching at this point is how many students have not been well-prepared by the US high school system. Of course, there is a population of very-well-prepared students who can begin advanced work nearly immediately but there is also a large pool of students without the mathematical or writing skills to support college work immediately. This both makes the teaching harder (requiring more different classes with varying focus and advancement levels) and often requires students to stay longer in school to make up for inadequate secondary education -- this increases the burden to the students significantly.

The shift to loans and tuition has been matched, in the "public" education world, by a massive decrease in the direct support provided to the universities by the states. Of course, one can argue that this is "made up" by the loan programs but there is a nasty correlary. With students paying the costs directly, they are far more likely to take on 40+ hour-per-week jobs to pay at least some of the costs. As a result, the students learn less and learn slower -- they are not able to give their full attention to the education process and need more years (more costs!) to graduate. Unfortunately, this change is probably irreversible now -- businesses and students both expect this arrangement to continue. Even if colleges _could_ lower tuition and students would be logically free to reduce work, those who most need the extra study time would still be pulled into the "part-time" work.

Another difficult aspect of the tuition-centric model is that many students arrive with the attitude "I've paid for the education, you have to make me educated" without any _further_ effort on their part. Given that paying the tuition could require full-time work, it's easy to sympathize that a student has already put out the effort for education, but that's clearly not enough. Education requires real effort for both the instructor and students.

One aspect of government involvement which was not addressed is the vast increase in mandated or quasi-mandated programs for oversight and student assistance. These regulations are a major source of the administrative cost increase. Universities years ago did not need the number of compliance officers and special program offices which exist now. These things may really be important to have in modern society, but they have a cost which must be faced.

Finally, on the question of taxation -- few universities make a profit, so business income taxation would have no impact in any case. Property taxation might have some impact, but it would be limited as many instutions already pay the equivalent amount to local governments to soften "town-and-gown" fights.

ltut in reply to A. Andros

You are right, these universities are all so 'liberal'. Perhaps if more Republicans had a proper university education they would all be 'horrible liberals' and support universal higher education so that all citizens were really equal and had an equal opportunity to education. On the other hand, it is so much more convenient to control the ignorant and uneducated...let's keep them out of those enlightening 'leftist' propaganda machines(obviously, anything that teaches individuals what the majority of the developed world has known for 30 years about equal rights and a proper social safety net cannot be rational or correct).

A. Andros in reply to ltut

There is no reason for anyone in this country to be "ignorant and uneducated." Every state in the Union offers twelve or thirteen years of absolutely free education. Many citizens, especially in the black community, show that they prefer to remain ignorant and uneducated by dropping out of school Sadly, this is now happening in the Hispanic community.

Universal higher education is available. Every state also maintains a community college system and most of these MUST accept all high-school graduates. The problem the article under discussion dealt with is the cost the state imposes on these students.

I read your sort of post all the time -- the failed effort at irony -- the overheated rhetoric -- the inability to discuss and the preference to declaim for an unearned position of moral superiority.

It is all so liberal.


Why would anyone pay through the nose for some run of the mill degree?

Where did it go wrong? Well, when the government started 'guaranteeing'... colleges and universities saw their chance and started to vastly increase fees... hey the government guarantees everything anyway. Just look at how much these fees have increased. All to pay for legions of overpaid administrators and also, a consideration that was very important for Congress, the vastly increased fees and loans and guarantees meant a big fat profit for Goldman Sachs and co.


The higher education model is a broken one, much like our private health-care system. The cost-benefit analysis no longer makes sense. I can get better access to learning resources with an internet connection, so really I'm just paying for "credits" and an hour or two a week of some professors time. Why bother?

If we are going to pay for kids to go to school all the way up grade 12, why not extend it to college as well? It is an excellent investment, as the GI bill showed.

Capn Fowl

Love & admire (most of) the posts. This 'Ivy Leaguer' believes:
- His "examined life" well worth the cost, regardless of earnings;
- Funding 3xKids for similar is equally valuable, returns aside; &
- In the mid-run, aside 'diploma mills,' "Education" is invaluable.
Best regards...

Jake Goode in reply to Capn Fowl

but that's assuming universities are the only place to 'examine' life. couldn't you do the same thing, cheaper? how about great books seminars at the public library? didn't socrates lecture in the public square? and do required courses in swimming, electives which you choose solely based on what's compatible with your schedule, and requirements that are picked at the whim of college departments, really help you to examine your life? it's more like hoop-jumping. what we fail to acknowldege is that most students are uninterested in the subjects they study, and simply waste time away until they sit through enough classes to get their degree.

JEFFPV in reply to Jake Goode

That's what's great, Jake: If people feel they can best examine their life through the public library, they can say lots of money by doing so.
No one is forcing students to go to expensive colleges.


The article does not mention that most (95%) of universities are public, that most professors are government employees, that most professors get to retire with massive taxpayer funded pensions,that most government employee professors cannot be discharged regardless of performance. But hey...The Economist is a left wing liberal rag of a mag...and these facts don't promote the liberal agenda.

You're spot on. Public education is absolutely a left-wing attempt at indoctrinating the youth to sing songs about Obama.

-- noted pinko commie scum, Adam Smith

He did also mention the shirking of duty by professors, even back in the 18th century, so I guess that's more of a plus ca change moment.

It amazes me how much you write considering how little you know.

In 2005, there were ~630 public 4-year uinstitutions, 1845 private 4-year institutions... your percentages are a little off (about 25% of 4 year institutions are public).
PROTIP: Use Google.
Source - http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908742.html

I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post because you obviously made it up just like the public/private stat.


How to fix the university revenue model for students and society.

step by step...




This fixes the problem because...





any thoughts?

john4law in reply to DrayNorton

You just have the WRONG reason for "higher" education particularly at the College level. The only justifiable reason for Liberal Arts programs is NOT to increase earning capacity BUT to make students more aware and cultured and discerning adults and enable them to enjoy and appreciate life and culture in all its forms. In short, Colleges are personal growth institutions! They are NOT for everyone and if you are not academically or artistically inclined, YOU SHOULDN'T BE THERE! That over and inappropriate consumption of intellectual and cultural resources IS the basic cause of the out of control inflation in Liberal Arts education! AT least half of those taking it should be somewhere else like technical and trade schools!

JEFFPV in reply to DrayNorton

Your ideas are interesting, but they side-step one important element: The role of universities is not supposed to be vocational; the role of universities is supposed to be to educate students in the students' fields of interest.

NO ONE is forcing students to go study liberal arts at $40K/year. If people want a vocational school, then they should go to one.

(P.S. There is no such thing as a "bullshyt" degree, if that degree is in a subject that interests the student.)

iThinker in reply to DrayNorton

Taking a % of students' income is interesting but not very practical. The administration of that is going to be a nightmare, not just in cases of transfer, multiple degrees etc. but lawsuits claiming one's income has nothing to do with the degree received but merely one's own effort/ingenuity etc.

I think the combined effect of escalating cost and market demand for certain degrees will eventually move colleges towards more career oriented degree granting institutions. This trend will be further accelerated by online education. It is interesting that colleges are offering technical courses online more than liberal arts courses, at least for now. Subjects in STEM (as well as finance, accounting) require much more direct and personal instructions, along with closer grading of course work, lab work etc. to achieve true proficiency.

Subjects in LibArt however, can easily be learned online or just by reading a book. If colleges really are sincere about their function as a place of learning, to expand one's horizon through knowledge of art, culture etc., then they should offer all their LibArt classes online, while offering degrees only for jobs that require specialized knowledge such as STEM/Law/Finance degrees. Eliminating the inter-disciplinary requirements will shorten these degrees to 2 years thereby cutting down the cost substantially. Students can always go learn about culture, history, sociology, political science etc. on their own before/during/after graduation.

The wide availability of these classes online will also allow us all to become lifelong learners, thereby truely achieving the aim of an educated citizenry. In fact, this is such a worthy cause our government should work with our universities to create an Online Public University that offers "general studies" classes in English, History, Art History, Economics, Sociology, Communications, International Studies, Intro to Accounting & Finance etc. for free to all citizens. People who still want the benefit of socializing with like minded beyond internet forums can always arrange for "local chapters" to meet and socialize, discuss topics of interests etc.

DrayNorton in reply to JEFFPV

lets see here....

So what is important?

getting a degree appreciating "art" and "culture"

Or getting a degree that lands you a job so YOU CAN SUPPORT YOURSELF so you can apreciate "art" and "culture"?

Hmm. you cannot be a patron of the arts unless you have the money to support it!!! So if you actually care about art and culture, then make money so you can support it.

(P.S. I guess there is no such thing as a "scam" as long as the participants dont realize its a scam)

DrayNorton in reply to iThinker

Administration of a university fee wont be that difficult. government already enforces withholding money from your paychecks to fund unions, and the mormon church easily keeps track of who is paying them the proper percentage of their wage. heck, if the University is non profit it would even be tax deductable!!!

Like you stated, education is free. I could bring in any of my friends to sit through any and all the classes i took in my university days. Degrees cost money, education does.

JEFFPV in reply to DrayNorton

There's no scam involved.

As I have already stated, the importance of any study lies in the edification of the participant. If someone wants to study art and culture, so be it. If they want to study engineering, more power to them.

There is no one forcing people to study the liberal arts. It is a choice. Should they make an informed choice on their job prospects after their studies? Absolutely, if that is part of their reason behind attending college. However, to disparage study of the arts because it doesn't always lead to employment based on those studies is misguided, in my view.

To clarify: If someone is going to a $40K/year liberal arts school to study Art Appreciation (for instance), they should be aware that there might not be a huge market in that particular field for them when they finish. If this possible lack of a market concerns them, then perhaps they should consider another major.

On the other hand, they will surely learn more about what interests them.

GSamsa in reply to DrayNorton

I'm not sure where you think having a Liberal Arts degree is useless. Who do you think designs the visual elements of a Advertisements or the way your computer is designed? Accountants? Who writes the story and scripts for the TV and Movies you watch? Civil Engineers?

As others here have stated, there is no such thing as a "useless" degree. It depends on supply demand and where you are with that degree. An Art Degree will be worth more in a place like New York City with tons of marketing and graphic design jobs, than say, a civil engineer.

Puntmeister in reply to JEFFPV

You are failing to incorporate the key issue - the debt incurred by the liberal arts majors.

To the extent the majority of students paid their own way through school, without taking on the burden of debt, then your argument would hold. Unfortunately, the reality is that most college students pay their way with Federally guaranteed loans, for which taxpayers are on the hook.

It is not misguided of taxpayers to question the wisdom of issuing loan guarantees for degrees in art history.

It is also not misguided to question the ethics of burdening naive teenagers with (unforgivable, even in bankrputcy) debt.

JEFFPV in reply to Puntmeister

Are you then suggesting that Federally guaranteed loans be made available only to, say, the top 15 prospective earning majors? A young aspiring journalist, teacher, or (even) art historian who wants to go to college should not have the same opportunities to learn their craft as accountants, hedge fund managers, and engineers? What a world!
Why not hold loan-takers actually accountable for their choices? I am wholeheartedly in favor of students having the option to study art history. However, those who do study it -- and take loans -- should have a plan to pay off those loans when they finish. It's called personal responsibility.

DrayNorton in reply to N.W. Clerk

@N.W. Clerk

Whats important?

Being able to support yourself so you can achieve happiness through your own means?

or having an "education" that you paid 40K+ for that you can find online for free?

Life isnt measured in anything, we're born, we eat, we shit, we sleep, we die.

Unfortunately, without money, your born and then you you die.


It would be nice to see an economic analysis.

An efficient market would price a college degree at its net present value. As future uncertainty about lifetime economic prospects increases a higher discount rate might be applied resulting in a lower present value. On the flip side, the value comes from excess earnings over non-college graduates (plus intangibles like an expanded circle of friends and potential spouses :)), so if no-graduate earnings are discounted at an even higher rate, the cost of college education should increase even though the NPV of college graduate future earnings is reduced.

There may well be a thousand things wrong with the above hypothesis - I like it best when the Economist generates great articles that make me rethink my preconceptions. This would have been a great opportunity.

Puntmeister in reply to xPeru

"An efficient market would price a college degree at its net present value".

Absolutely true. The core problem - the University Degree Market is highly inefficient.

Of course, I, too, would like to see the hard numbers. But a little common sense suggests the market is inefficient, even without hard data:

At any given University, the cost of the degree is the same, regardless of the subject matter. However, it is clearly the case that the NPV of a degree in Art History from University X is worth less than the NPV of a degree in Bio-Chemistry from the same University. Yet, the cost is the same.

There are two key flaws to economic theory - economic theory is based on 1) rational man and 2) perfect information.

Teenagers (College entrants) are not terribly rational, and they are sorely lacking in information (largely the fault of society which dupes them, and Universities which gladly take advantage of their dupedness).

Chairman Rao in reply to xPeru

So african/chicano studies, psychology, sociology, etc. should be priced at close to free since that is the NPV of the earnings you can expect as a result of studying those subjects. However, if we followed your recommendation, a lot more of us would go into those fields (where there are already too many).

I find myself agreeing with many posters before me who suggested that the economics and success of colleges need to be somehow tied to the generated future earnings potential of their graduates. This would lead to accountability and efficiency in every sphere.

JM3 in reply to xPeru

There is a problem with this.

Education isn't an asset that you 'buy'. That idea is in fact a huge problem. It requires a lot of work, and not all people are capable of it. And the best education can require a lot more work than most would willingly expend.

So you can't say 'this engineering degree will increase income by X over a lifetime so it should cost Y'. This would be ridiculous, not even including the fact that most college age people do not have a huge nest egg and must take out loans for the degree.

Southern Lawyer

Boomer goes to college when the price is dirt cheap and the payoff is tremendous. Boomer does well. Boomer ages, has kids and votes to remove the substantial state funding of education he benefited from because rar taxes. Boomer's kids are raised to respect authority just as Boomer was once taught. Kids come of college age and Boomer--along with Boomer's wife, kids' peers, coaches, priests, counselors, and every other authority figure in kids' lives--stress without qualification the importance of going to the best college the kid can get into. Kid follows their lead and graduates with an extraordinary debt load and few job prospects. Boomers decry stupidity of kid.


A. Andros in reply to DrayNorton

You left out one element -- and it is a doozy! The Boomer attended college at a cost of between a few hundred dollars a year and a couple thousand dollars a year. Given the rate of inflation between, say, 1962 and today it would be reasonable to expect that the range might now be between two or three thousand dollars a year up to, perhaps, three or four times that amount. However, the cost of a college education has simply soared far, far beyond the rate of inflation.

The Boomers aren't the problem here. And, the young kids aren't the problem either. Also, the degree -- and a college education IS valuable - is not the problem.

The problem is a liberal educational establishment that has not only been allowed to gorge itself on public funds via the student loan program but actively encouraged by the government to do so.

This is no ironic "accident" that happened over the past fifty year. In plain and simple English, colleges and universities have screwed, blued and tatooed young people for the benefit of institutions of "higher education."

There was a little stress in we pre-Boomers lives too, you know -- little things like Korea and Vietnam. But, bad as things may have been, we simply were not exploited and victimized by left-leanding higher education as now routinely happens to the current generation.

Goya painted a wonderful oil entitled "Saturn Eating His Children." Re-lable "Saturn" as "Higher Education" and leave "Children" the way it is and you have a pretty good visual metaphor for what we are doing to our young.

simon says in reply to Southern Lawyer

So in your world the debt is high because taxpayer support for college was reduced. Your argument is fundamentally flawed. Forget where the money comes from. Simply look at what the colleges' budgets are today vs. 40 years ago in dollars spent per student. You will find, as the article states, that what the colleges spend per student has increased at triple the rate of inflation for decades. That is the problem. Colleges refuse to control their costs. They just keep assuming they can always push parents, students, and taxpayers for more.

Now they've reached the tipping point. States are broke because they had their own dilusional view of the world in which they could always increase state employee pay and benefits faster than inflation. So no more money to be extorted there. The Federal government is in deep debt and has been stimulating the economy by printing trillions of $ the last 3 years for virtually zero gain. Joe citizen has not seen his real pay increase in 20 years. And your solution is to tell Joe citizen if he won't pony up himself to send his kid to a school which refuses to face reality and control its cost, then you'll just take the money from him by taxing him more to give money to these irresponsible adminstrators. Nice.


The trend is not different in the UK, where not-profitable departments - arts and humanities mainly, and in some cases social sciences - are supposed to finance themselves or to face the ultimate doom of a shut-down, as it is here suggested, by a newspaper that hates austerity eco-politics. What I find positive about the Brits though, that their students take to the streets and make some noise, while some US-american students want to fight Goldman-Sachs, if they want to fight in the first place, with no chances of winning this battle. Not fight where they can make a difference, where they matter, where their money matters. The level of conformity among US-american students - to be distinguished from other American students, say Latin-American students, is amazing.
Brings me to the next point. It is not that students of today study less or work less hard than former students. Many professors of today will tell you their work and its results from their student time wouldn't stand a chance against their students' results. When you read dissertations from the 50's and 60's for example, you think, this was too easy. You might want to enforce a "deflation" of grades, and thus cause inflation of intelligence rates. I am in favour of that. This is the way we, humans, tick. Studies comparing school curricula of today and of the "past" demonstrate the fact, that children today are asked to learn and yield more, and they do it. A sort of an evolution.
Yet study and grades are not everything. In fact, they design a conform personality. The US academy loves to think, it teaches its students to think "outside the box." In reality, it's chronic optimism and idealism, which does not cash out in everyday life on campus, I am afraid, given the almost feudal power professors have in classrooms. How about enforcing independent thinking as an evaluation criterium?

Mathew Knudson

I think universities need to return their focus to education and skill building. It's time to axe the idea that Colleges must offer not just education, but fun activities and community events, and trips and rock climbing and 100 other things. Higher education should be about education; I'm more than capable of buying my own gym membership should I want to.


There is no surprise here. The super market approach to education: money first, professors are salesmen (attract as many students and grant money as possible), flashy displays (like the library mentioned in the article) and the more clients, the better. Then you want the 100% of society to have a higher degree. It is not a higher degree anymore. It is just a degree. And the level must be low or most people would fail. What a great way to ruin one more thing.


I am a liberal progressive democrat. I have a degree in social injustice, another degree in community activist, and a third degree in civil rights. All these degrees and yet I still can't find a job. All my Republican friends with their degrees in engineering...they all have jobs. It's just not fair.

madg612 in reply to tryworkingforaliving

I agree it is not fair. When individuals turn 18 they are supposed to enroll in college and decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives? This is a guess, but I am sure that more than the majority do not have high paying jobs if and when they do graduate. Do they have the assertiveness to obtain two more degrees such as yourself? I know this article only depicts a few schools and situations, but the numbers prognosticate that people who enroll in college at a young age are being set up for failure. On a side note, keep pushing for a job you like, do not settle and you will land the congenial occupation you wanted.

Hmm... I have two science (Bio and Chem) undergraduate degrees and I am an engineer. I'm also a registered independent who voted for both Obama for President and Chris Christie to be my Governor in the state of New Jersey. Methinks your (and your many ill educated and small minded brethren's) generalizations indicate a lack of understanding on more than just the issue of higher education.



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