Over a decade ago, I wrote a short book titled The Higher Education Bubble, which was followed by a much longer one called The New School, and a significantly longer and updated paperback version called The Education Apocalypse.
In all of these books I explained, with increasing amounts of detail and examples, why I thought that the existing system of higher education in America was doomed. Not that higher education itself would cease to exist, but that the standard model of college, graduate, and professional education that had obtained since the passage of the G.I. Bill, and in many ways since the late 19th Century, would largely cease to exist. This was due to a combination of out-of-control costs and loss of prestige.
So is the apocalypse now? Maybe. At the very least, we’re at some sort of a turning point.
The cost part is now pretty obvious. When I started writing on this, a college education was almost uniformly seen as the way to get ahead. Nowadays sitcoms often feature jokes about people with useless degrees and heavy debt, professors more interested in avoiding controversy than teaching, and corrupt administrators.
People – especially young men – are increasingly foregoing college for the trades, and other areas where they can make good livings without running up debt. (I have a nephew who recently graduated from welding school and who is already making well over $50/hour as a beginning welder, which translates to a six-figure annual income. I think his debt at graduation was like $3000. Compare that to many college grads who have $200,000 or more in debt and take jobs paying in the mid five figures.) So falling college enrollment and an increasing gender imbalance have become the norm.