Notwithstanding the plight of a great many young Americans who have gone to college, perhaps obtained a degree, possibly learned little of any use, and now work at low-skill jobs, we still hear rousing cheers from defenders of the “College is still a good investment” crowd. In a recent piece riffing on one of Robert Reich’s columns, Brookings Institution senior fellow Gary Burtless proclaimed that college is Not a Ludicrous Waste of Money. In my latest SeeThruEdu piece, I take issue with him.

His case for college is the negative one that even though many college grads are in bad shape, on the whole, Americans without degrees are even worse off. It’s a positional argument, not one based on any intrinsic benefit of the college experience. The problem with this argument is two fold. First, lots of young Americans, especially those with scant academic engagement, will spend a lot of time and money and still end up with a mundane job and poor career prospects. Second, encouraging them to go to college encourages credential mania to accelerate. Already, a BA is insufficient for many jobs once capably done by individuals with high school educations.