Thomas Sowell’s column today takes dead aim at the recent Wall Street Journal piece Jane and I attacked earlier in the week. Sowell questions how much benefit there can be in processing more of the low-achieving high-school graduates through to college degrees. I particularly like his analogy to the housing bubble, where policymakers mindless pursued the goal of increasing percentages of home ownership without stopping to wonder if home ownership made sense for those people lured out of renting by cheap rates and lax documentation.

Today’s Wall Street Journal letters section also has several crushing rebuttals to McPherson and Schulenberg. I’ve pasted the first two after the jump. The first was written by a student at Davidson College who is interning at the John Locke Foundation, and the second is Jane’s:

Plan to Increase College Education Raises Many Issues
Peter McPherson and David Shulenburger (“Yes, We Can Expand Access to Higher Ed,” op-ed, June 20) suggest that without a higher proportion of college graduates “our country’s prominence is at risk.” None of their evidence establishes a link between education and the “discovery, invention and innovation” necessary for a vibrant economy.
The evidence more accurately suggests that employers see college degrees as signals; the degree serves as a proxy for some level of perseverance and intelligence. Increased access will blur these signals and likely lead to watered-down standards at colleges. A proliferation of bachelor’s degree holders will force employers to look for masters’s degrees as signals. Colleges eager to obtain more funding will boost graduation rates through relaxed standards, demonstrating their usefulness in helping to reach the proposed national target.
Education matters, but access is not the primary problem facing us today. Federal and state programs to help students finance their education have existed for decades. The authors’ assertion that “higher education needs help,” instead of poor students, sheds light on the interests at play.
Alexander Pitsinos
Davidson, N.C.
Persuading more students to attend college will set up millions of young people for failure. Messrs. McPherson and Shulenburger’s policies will bring in marginal students. Even now, many students who attend college are unprepared and unwilling to do college work. Why add more students to this pool of unhappy dropouts?
Young people who would be better off as nurses’ aides, electricians and carpenters are being pushed into college. Some fail. Some leave with heavy debts they cannot easily repay. Artificially boosting the number who attend college is a policy that will have perverse results.
Jane S. Shaw
Raleigh, N.C.

Are McPherson and Schulenberg ready to cry “uncle”?