In today’s Pope Center piece, Duke Cheston writes about the recent movie Larry Crowne, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. The film’s plot line revolves around the unhappy circumstances of Hanks’ character, who loses his job simply because he doesn’t have “proper” academic credentials — for work that doesn’t actually call for any scholarly preparation. Then he has trouble finding another job for the same reason. He has to enroll in a community college to credentialize himself.

I have not seen the movie myself, but from what Duke says about it, Hollywood has just helped to demonstrate how oversold higher education has become.