Has Higher Education Been Oversold?

George Leef, Executive Director of the John William Pope Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, is one of our most astute observers of American colleges and universities. In September, the Center published Leef’s paper “The Overselling of Higher Education,” which examined and challenged many of the common generalities generated by campus administrators, professors, and politicians about the need for higher education and the value of diplomas. (See www.popecenter.org.) The power of this carefully documented paper is such that academics would be wise to do what they can to keep it from the millions of anxious parents and students who might well question the value of investing so much time and money in earning a degree.

A college diploma is widely thought to be necessary in order to land a job, earn top pay, and help spur economic progress on the state and federal levels. We are often told, Leef points out, that we need to increase our national investment (read “expenditures”) in colleges and universities in order to make higher education available to nearly everyone. A college degree has become part of the “American way,” a sign of personal and national progress.

In fact, Leef contends, the data linking diplomas with personal prosperity are misleading. Yes, on average college degree holders earn more than do non-degree holders, but that often cited fact does not lead to the conclusion that specific individuals would have secured better, higher-paying jobs if they had gone to college and obtained a degree. “Instead of looking at average earnings for each group—which inflates the earnings of the college-educated by including many fabulously wealthy professionals and business executives, while depressing the earnings of those without college degrees by including many individuals who are scarcely literate—it is more sensible to focus on the workers at the margin. The right question to ask is this: For high school graduates who might have gone to college but did not, is it the case that their earnings would be significantly higher if they had instead enrolled in college?”

The answer is frequently “no.” For one thing, there are many fine job opportunities available to high school graduates. Moreover, many students, languishing in colleges without motivation and resistant to much learning, would be better off if they had opted for vocational training. Most of the occupations expected to show the greatest growth in the next decade will require skills rather than a college diploma.

Secondly, Leef argues that the idea that everyone should go to college has resulted in a watering down of academic standards. “Owing to the degradation of the curriculum,” he observes, “there is reason to believe that the typical college graduate today is no better educated than was the typical high school graduate of 1955.” Writing skills, for example, have plummeted; people often graduate today without knowing what a sentence is. “For many…college education is now a mushy concoction of watered down, trendy, and frivolous courses that do little to enhance their skills or build their knowledge base.” The proliferation of degrees has often led to the placement of graduates in jobs that pay less and offer less personal satisfaction than those enjoyed by people with workplace skills. A third of the Domino’s pizza delivery drives in the Washington, D.C. area have B.A.s.

Leef even cites a study by economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University showing that there is a negative relationship between state higher education spending (77% of college students are in state supported schools) and corresponding economic performance. “Vedder calculates that a 10 percent increase in state higher education spending will reduce economic growth in the state by 5.2%.” He argues that the money spent on colleges and universities takes resources away from the productive private sector. This is a far cry from the belief of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who said that higher education is like “jet fuel” for the economy.

Behind the drive for a college education for most Americans are the great majority of campuses thirsting for every dollar of tuition money they can raise. (No campus ever has “enough” money.) Leef argues that state governments should increase their tuition fees and entrance standards. “Higher education is extremely valuable for some people, but not for everyone. By promoting it as heavily as we have in this country, we haven’t raised either the level of education or skill in the population, but instead have brought on credential inflation and the erosion of academic standards. Out best course is to turn down the sales campaign that has drawn so many weak students into college.” Leef would prefer to see support given to “competitive institutions offering job training that is more focused and beneficial than the traditional college degree,” campuses such as Northface University in Utah, backed by IBM, “institutions that have strong incentives to sell their programs to people who know what kind of career they want to pursue.”