Our human capital problem: College costs too much and the returns are too small

Ryan Streeter
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This Barbara Hollingsworth post at the Examiner today hit on one of today's most important themes that we really don't spend too much time discussing: our higher ed cost-benefit problem. People are talking a lot about the college bubble these days, but the conversation is restriced to a small group, actually. Most people aren't too aware of the issues involved.

The bottom line is this: we spend a ton of money as families on college these days, but the long-term economic benefits to the student in question are dubious at best.

Hollingsworth concludes her post thus:

Conservative Ohio University economist Richard Vedder summed up the problem with higher education:

College is too expensive and inefficient;

Students don’t work very hard – and learn even less;

There’s no adequate system to evaluate what they have learned;

Only a minority of college students graduate on time;

There’s a major disconnect between most university curriculums and the needs of the labor market; and

Federal and state student aid policies merely expand the disaster.