The Higher Education Fraud

I just read an article on the current higher education bubble, which could burst at any time. But the author makes an interesting point that, while some degrees and the skills and education that accompany it may be worth the cost of their tuition (i.e. computer programming, nursing, or engineering), many others are not.

This observation caused me to view the modern higher education system in a new light. It’s a messed up system, a communist system, where everyone pays the same tuition, regardless of what they get in return. How in the world this system has lasted as long as it has blows me away. No wonder so many professors feel that socialist principles work. But in reality, it doesn’t work. Schools have resorted to defrauding many of their students of their education value. They come to school, pay their dues, and expect to come out ready and able to earn back their investment doing what it is their interests have caused them to pursue. But many of them find their education to be useless. A man called into a radio show I was listening to the other day, and when asked what he does for a living, he quipped “Well, I was a history major in college, so, of course, I’m a sales manager.” It’s funny because it's very true. So many college graduates have enslaved themselves to the huge debts of ever rising tuition costs, only to find themselves lacking the earning power to pay back the debt.

This, as the author of the article noted, is likely to change in the coming years. The hype of the value of education has led to an enormous bubble, and people are realizing that the value of the education, in many cases, does not equal the costs of tuition. Education could be the next bubble to burst.

But this discussion has caused me to see a way to reform higher education in a way that would work much better for all students. This reformation is based in the actual value of education. Each degree would be assigned its market value, and therefore the cost of tuition will vary based on the value of the degree. No longer do we have women’s studies degrees costing the same as an engineering degrees, or world religion majors paying the same as business students. Instead, students would pay for the value of the education they receive, of course factoring in the market value of the positions the students can obtain, the ability of the school to place the students in those positions, the ammount of instruction that cannot be easily self-taught, and other factors. Thus, a school that has a prestigious medical program can charge more for their degree than Bo Diddley Tech’s medical program. MIT’s engineering program can charge much more than ITT Tech. But MIT's music program doesn't cost $60,000 a year also.

Really, the markets should have caused this change decades ago. Specialty schools indeed have such market factors in play already. But state-run universities and competing private universities have long been promoting their education as essential to all, regardless of the path they choose. They deceive young, gullible students and their parents into believing that the value they will get far exceeds the costs. In some cases this is true, but in many others it is not. It is fraud, and it is sad that it is such a blatant and prominent fraud.