The higher-education bubble is deflating. Government subsidies and political rhetoric got huge numbers of Americans believing that “investing” in a college degree was the path to a lucrative future. Reality is now intruding on that dreamy notion. College degrees are neither necessary nor sufficient for success, and the cost has risen enormously. As people realize that, many colleges are looking at a dismal future.
In today’s Martin Center article, Walt Gardner ponders what non-selective schools will need to do to survive:
Reversing the bleak future for these schools will require a radical transformation that many fear will undermine the very purpose of higher education. Converting them into vocational colleges, they say, merely trains young people to be replaceable cogs in this country’s economy. It unavoidably means fewer good citizens. That assertion, however, assumes that college graduates today possess the wherewithal to think critically. But, as Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa made clear in Academically Adrift, 36 percent showed no significant improvement in this area after four years of higher education.
Yes — there’s the bitter truth about college. For many, it’s four or more years of coasting along without any intellectual gains.
Gardner continues:
Despite the uproar over the elimination of, or disinvestment in, the liberal arts, the metamorphosis of universities into job-training institutions is good for students, less-selective colleges, and the nation. Whether we like to admit it or not, education is sensitive to the law of supply and demand. The cost of a bachelor’s degree makes that clear. Since 1990, tuition has substantially outpaced inflation. As a result, students and their parents understandably demand evidence that the heavy investment they are making will pay off. It’s not enough to remind them that the value of a college degree can’t be measured solely by the marketplace. They already know that psychic income does not pay the rent.
Lots of Schumpeterian creative destruction is hitting the higher-ed marketplace, and we’ll be better off for it.