A Leak in the College Bubble?
When the housing bubble burst and sent the economy into a tailspin, the college bubble started to inflate even more rapidly. Desperate to compete in a brutal labor market, workers faced intensifying pressures to rack up degrees. Colleges (even marginal institutions) found a pool of captive consumers willing to pay high prices for their dubious credentials. And businesses, which had a dominant edge in the slack labor market, had the luxury of tossing out applicants without impressive educational histories.
But now that the labor market is tightening, each of these dynamics is changing, and the artificially inflated value of a college degree may be starting to come back down to earth. USA Today reports:
