A report released recently by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy says higher education has been oversold to the public. Many students who are not really interested in academic pursuits are spending a lot of time and money to get a credential that is much less valuable than they suppose, says the report.
The paper was written by Pope Center Executive Director George Leef and focuses on many of the common themes that dominate higher-education policy today. Among the topics addressed in the paper is the common belief that we have entered a “knowledge economy,” where it’s important for nearly everyone to go to college. Leef said that idea is mistaken, but because it is so widely believed, colleges have been flooded with students who would have been better off if they had chosen to do something else.
“Many students who are neither academically strong nor inclined toward serious intellectual work have been lured into colleges and universities,” Leef wrote. “At considerable cost to their families and usually the taxpayer as well, those students sometimes obtain a degree, but often with little, if any, gain in human capital that will prove beneficial in the labor market or the challenges of life.”
Students receive poor information from guidance counselors and teachers about the importance of a college education, and they push marginally qualified students to enter college, Leef said. They, and others, tell students that the only way to get a “good job” is to get their degrees, Leef writes. One unfortunate result, he said, is that academic standards have been diminished to accommodate students who are not interested in studying.
Among the inefficiencies that result from the overselling of higher education is credential inflation, Leef said. Many employers insist that applicants have college degrees for jobs that don’t call for any particular knowledge, he said. That causes young people either to over-invest in formal education or be shut out from many jobs they could easily learn to do, he said.
Leef proposes that governments stop subsidizing higher education and that institutions raise their academic standards.
Shannon Blosser is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.