AEI has just issued a new paper by University of Kentucky professor John Thelin, “The Attrition Tradition in American Higher Education: Connecting Past and Present.” I haven’t read it yet, but the upshot is that there was no “golden age” in higher education when most students graduated. In the past, attrition rates were high — and people didn’t see that as a problem.

Today, of course, many people and institutions think it’s a crisis that the U.S. has such a high college dropout rate. Was it a mistake not to have worried more about college completion in the past? Or is it a mistake to do so today? I’m interested to find out what Professor Thelin has to say.