A Distillation of Recent Articles on Higher Education's Dubious Value

The spate of articles questioning higher education's value has accelerated and is synthesized in this article just published in The Atlantic. Subsequently, I was just interviewed on that topic for a forthcoming Newsweek article, which the reporter hopes will be a cover story.

But higher education's media, marketing, and lobbying machines are prodigious and so I believe this surprisingly sleazy industry will change only if a fully-disclosing College Report Card, prominently placed on each college's website is required for accreditation or by the federal government. I describe such a Report Card HERE.

Even if the U.S. audits the Report Cards for misstatements, as Senator Boxer accuses law schools, some institutions will cheat in reporting the data. Nonetheless, I believe the Report Cards will contain sufficient valid data to empower consumers to more wisely choose a college and, in turn, force the colleges to improve the quality of what they provide for the enormous sums of money, four to eight years of time, and the opportunity cost.