There’s a good post today at Wise Bread making the argument that going to college just for the learning doesn’t make sense. In a nutshell, the post makes the case that, with only some peculiar exceptions, a person can learn 
stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
Of course, a person should probably go to college anyway. It’s just that learning things is not, per se, reason enough to spend four years and a modest fortune in tuition. There are good dollars and cents motivations for college and keeping a clear head about them is important.
(I haven’t researched this, but I write this blog under the assumption that my readership amongst high schoolers is zero. So to a certain extent this discussion is, you will pardon the expression, academic. Perhaps there are parents of high schoolers reading.)
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Suppose you are a high school senior with a lot of foresight and a bottom line outlook. Naturally, you would want to pick a college based on how much its degree will be worth in future earnings. Conveniently, there is a website called PayScale "a market leader in global online compensation data" that recently 
published a list of median salaries by college. They list both what graduates got right out of school and "mid-career median salary."
The methodology of the survey leaves a lot to be desired. Firstly, it is not a random sample, but based on the data entered by college graduates who signed up with PayScale. That happens to be rather a lot of people, but it is still hard to avoid the assumption that the data is skewed in some way.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, holders of graduate degrees were excluded. As quoted in the New York Times’ Economix blog, Al Lee, PayScale’s director of quantitative analysis attempted to justify this.
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Our elected leaders are currently working up a head of steam to reform healthcare. Good luck with that. The mere fact that they vaguely call the effort "reform" tells you it’s going to be a very steep hill to climb. What nobody wants to say out loud is that the big problem with healthcare is that we spend so much on it, and we can’t spend meaningfully less on it without getting less of it. Like I said, good luck.
In the US, we spend about 12.5% of GDP on healthcare, a higher percentage than any other developed country. However, I think we can all agree we get 
rather a lot for our money. In contrast, we spend 2.6% of GDP on higher education, also the highest developed world percentage. And of course, we get something for our money here too. I for one am glad our doctors went to medical school. But dollar for dollar I think we’re getting a lot more value from healthcare.
Why do we spend so much on higher education? And why isn’t it considered a crisis worthy of reform? Part of the problem is a cultural attitude that higher education is a kind of higher calling. Attending college is a good thing in an abstract and noble way that doesn’t lend itself to cost benefit analysis. Asking if it is a wise investment in dollar terms just seems tawdry.
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Congress is about to pass “sweeping credit card legislation.” I don’t think it’s all that sweeping, and although overall I don’t particularly object to it, there are aspects of it that bother me.
Reassuringly for us curmudgeons, the bill is hardly revolutionary, largely a collection of modestly worthwhile reforms and regulations. There are rules about how interest rates can be raised and late fees charged. Most people will not notice any effects, and even those that do will probably forget about it in a year or two.
However, there is one aspect of the would-be law that is significant both in its impact on a small slice of the public and as a sign of the times. The just-passed Senate version of the bill outlaws credit cards issued to those under 21. The House version set the minimum age at 18. That’s a big difference in my book.
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stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
College, PF Blogs | Frank Curmudgeon | 
October 6, 2009 11:59 am | 
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