New York Times writer Dave Leonhardt argues in this piece that our biggest higher ed problem isn’t the level of student debt, but rather the fact that lots of young people accumulate college loan debts but never get their degree. Could he still not understand that just because a student earns the degree (while piling up still more debt while doing so) that does not ensure good employment or that fabled “college earnings premium”?
He goes on to write, “Those dropouts point to some of the big flaws that our higher-education system does have. Many colleges graduate fewer than half of the students they enroll — and resist policy makers’ attempts to hold them accountable for their results.” The problem there is obvious: colleges don’t graduate students; students either earn the right to graduate or they don’t. Among those who don’t, a large percentage shouldn’t have enrolled in the first place because they’re academically ill-prepared and not engaged with college-level work (such as it is). To hold schools “accountable” would merely encourage more grade inflation and watering down of the curriculum. Then, more students would graduate, but the graduates wouldn’t be any more likely to succeed in finding worthwhile employment.