College is a gamble: Will you graduate?

College is a gamble (September 2023)

Americans have soured on the value of a college education, writes Paul Tough in the New York Times Magazine. Ten years ago, 86 percent of graduates said college had been a good investment and nearly all parents expected their children to go. "Now almost half of American parents say they’d prefer that their children not enroll in a four-year college."

The college wage premium remains high: College grads earn 65 percent more than high school grads. But that doesn't take student loans into account, writes Tough. The college wealth premium, which includes assets and debts, shows a different picture: It's declined sharply for younger graduates.

Since 1992, the sticker price has almost doubled for four-year private colleges and more than doubled for four-year public colleges, even after adjusting for inflation. . . . After financial aid, the average net price for private-college students is about $33,000 a year; at public institutions, it is about $19,000. Total student debt stood at $500 billion in 2007, and is now $1.6 trillion. Higher education is a gamble, says economist Douglas Webber. Whether it's likely to pay off (in dollars, not love of Renaissance poetry) varies by academic ability (will you graduate?), college major (engineering or fine arts?) and cost. Forty percent of students who start college don't earn a degree. "Students who borrow money to attend college but don’t graduate" are big losers in the higher education casino, his research shows. Financially, "they were doing worse than adults who had never gone to college at all."

The source for the above cited story is The New York Times (magazine). The bio that follows his essay is interesting. What I think would be more interesting would be a thorough review not of the inequality college produces, nor the ill feeling it has produced among parents. Rather, perhaps on just how ineffective, corrupt and cost-inefficient a 'college education' (read, a "degree") has become. Fewer moody feelings, more meaningful facts would help. Perhaps worse of all, Tough ignores the incredible cost to society of looks more and more like a wholly irresponsible, unaccountable, and unproductive major sector of civilization, i.e., the formal education of the citizenry.

Paul Tough is a contributing writer for the magazine and the author, most recently, of the book “The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us.” He first wrote about higher education for the magazine almost a decade ago, and his article in this issue investigates how the national mood about college has evolved over time.

College has always been a gamble, only it was more like the stock market or poker, and it took some talent, skill and effort to win. Today, colleges want parents to treat a college acceptance as they're having won the lottery, earned a golden ticket. Then students demand "equity" grading. [NOTE: My retired CIA brother teaching physics in Montgomery county, in one class, has 14 students with a real variety of "accommodations" that must be met, some of which just can't be met in any reasonable way. That plus more than a dozen native languages among the students -- in just one class.] And colleges do this by deeply discounting prices to those who are not ready to sit at the table, and they also likely drop out before all the cards are even dealt. Colleges often counter the 'distrust' factor with the discount -- making college 'accessible' -- just like those betting services that guarantee a win up front, or your money back on your first loss.

And, yes, colleges have always exacerbated inequality, because in a knowledge-based economy, those admitted had higher IQs and standard test scores, so they benefited most from the cornucopia of opportunity a really good college environment produces. And no matter how woke we become, we can never make everyone equal in terms of IQ, test scores, initiative, and resilience. Students used to tel me, "You have a PhD, you must be really smart." And I'd respond, "More important, I never quit going to school. I just kept going (until they threw me out)." Brian Linane used to always tell parents and students, "Squeeze the sponge." I told him he needed to say, "Be the sponge" when it comes to absorbing all you can from the resources a college can provide.