At what point do we stop thinking of college “as a path to prosperity”?

Those familiar with my posts here or my op-eds will know what my answer will be to the question in the subject line.  But, enough about me; let's bring in some real experts!

That question in the subject line of this post is a part of the interview with Glenn Reynolds, who replies:

REYNOLDS: As soon as possible. Some students do better by going to college. Others do worse. Four out of ten students, according to Gallup, wind up in jobs they could have gotten without a college degree. That makes the time, and money, spent in college a waste, at least as far as prosperity is concerned. And some students actually do worse by going to college, developing problems with drugs, alcohol, or sex that may plague them for years, or a lifetime. Then there’s the debt, which can run into six figures, and isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Of course, I agree with Reynolds.

Now, one could remark that the interview is in a publication that is clearly identified with the right side of the political spectrum and that, therefore, this is a biased and ideological position.  So, what does Camille Paglia, who is nowhere and everywhere on the political spectrum, think about this push for college?

" Michelle Obama's going on: 'Everybody must have college.' Why? Why? What is the reason why everyone has to go to college? Especially when college is so utterly meaningless right now, it has no core curriculum" and "people end up saddled with huge debts," says Ms. Paglia. What's driving the push toward universal college is "social snobbery on the part of a lot of upper-middle-class families who want the sticker in the window."

At a college like ours, where most students do not come from affluent backgrounds, the push for college is increasingly a financially disastrous outcome for many students who graduate with debt and no real jobs that will pay those promised middle-class wages.  We faculty and staff don't seem to worry about where our salaries come from!  Reynolds addresses that aspect too:

LOPEZ: You point out that you may be a potential loser in education reform — as a tenured professor “who is making out all right as it is.” You’re okay with that?
REYNOLDS: Yeah. The current professoriate has had a good ride, but in the past decade or two in particular, that ride has been mostly on the backs of increasingly indebted students and parents. That can’t go on forever, and shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, at the other end--at the graduate studies end of the continuum--the promise of the good ride of the professoriate means way more PhDs are being produced compared to the academic jobs, which means there is an army of unemployed and underemployed doctorates.  I have blogged enough about the ponzi scheme that graduate school has become.  So, again, enough about me. Here is Megan McArdle:

The fundamental issue in the academic job market is not that administrators are cheap and greedy, or that adjuncts lack a union. It’s that there are many more people who want to be research professors than there are jobs for them. And since all those people have invested the better part of a decade in earning their job qualifications, they will hang around on the edges of academia rather than trying to start over. Such a gigantic glut of labor is bound to push down wages and working conditions.
Unfortunately, I’m essentially arguing that professors ought to, out of the goodness of their heart, get rid of their graduate programs and go back to teaching introductory classes to distracted freshman. Maybe they should do this. But they’re not going to.

Happy new year!