In a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, Marty Nemko argues that the bachelor’s degree is America’s most overrated product. Many students spend a load of money to get one, learn little while obtaining it, and later discover that the job market is pretty depressing for people who have educational credentials but no particular abilities. They wind up in jobs that most high-school kids could be trained to do. That’s a point I have frequently made, most recently here.

Of late, we’ve heard a lot of talk about “predatory lending” — that is, lenders inducing gullible people to borrow for houses they really couldn’t afford. You could make at least as good a case that “predatory education” should also be actionable. When schools lure unsophisticated kids (and their parents) into degree programs that will, in all likelihood, leave the student with nothing but a big pile of bills, they have done much the same thing. I’m a believer in freedom of contract and caveat emptor, so I reject both concepts, but I wonder why the politicians who say loudly that they’ll crack down on predatory lending don’t say anything about predatory education.