When Is College Worth It?

Robert VerBruggen:

Today's RealClearPolicy slate features a piece from Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post claiming that college is a good investment. It pushes back against arguments in the vein of critics like Charles Murray and Richard Vedder, who argue that too many people are going to college.

Several years ago, I wrote a few pieces for National Review outlining the Murray/Vedder view (here's one from the website), but I hadn't kept up with the debate, and Matthews's piece features a lot of newer research on the subject. What follows isn't necessarily a response, but more of an overview of the topic and a reconsideration of my views in light of the updated evidence. I have six main points to make.

1. It's not about college, it's about college-for-all.

Matthews spends a considerable amount of time explaining that attending college is a good idea for the average student. This is true -- but to the best of my knowledge, no college critic disputes it. For a lot of high-paying jobs, you simply need a college degree, no matter how smart you are; today's doctors, teachers, engineers, and so forth would not be nearly so well off if they'd stopped after high school.

What we argue is that not all students benefit from college the way that the average student does, and that efforts to draw even more students to college could do more harm than good, because such efforts are focused on students who today rationally decide that college isn't for them. We especially bristle at the notion that America should aspire to send all students to college.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 1, 2013 12:10 AM
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