Sunday, August 8, 2010

Higher Ed Bubble, Revisited

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor who famously blogs as Instapundit, writes an interesting article for the Washington Examiner. His topic is that higher education - colleges and universities, undergraduate and graduate education - is in a bubble mode, much as housing was.

Tuition costs are going up more rapidly than inflation, with students and their parents borrowing heavily to finance these increased costs. Schools are spending more too.

Reynolds expects the higher ed. bubble to burst, with a shakeout of the weaker programs, particularly those whose graduates do not have a clear track to employment. This will create chaos among the faculty.

I've spent all of my adult life involved with higher education, as a consumer, a producer, or both; I wouldn't be surprised if Reynolds' prediction is correct. If so, the sort of programs in which the other DrC and I were, and to some extent still are, involved should be okay.

Our students normally get jobs in their fields of study: education and business respectively. In fact, there were tough years when those were almost the only two fields for which recruiters came to campus.

If the future of higher education interests you, give Reynolds' article a glance.