Higher Ed Bubble?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, who blogs as Instapundit, has written an interesting column for the The Washington Examiner about the similarities between the recently exploded housing bubble and what has been going on in higher education over the last decades. The parallels are both real and disquieting. However, I'm not sure they apply to all of higher education.

I spent my career in the business schools of state universities of no particular distinction. Mostly these were AACSB accredited business schools, but that only by the skin of their teeth. They were not big-name schools with highly-competitive admissions policies and/or well-known football teams.

Did our graduates learn about what any B-school grads learn? Yes. Did they get decent jobs? Yes. Did they party a lot on the way to their degrees? Yes.

Did they end up on Wall Street playing Masters of the Universe? No. Did they end up making megabucks as high-rolling consultants? No. Did they form a network of friends whose parents have a condo in Vail or a summer place on the Cape or in the Hamptons? No.

Did they end up with student loans equaling the price of a new home? No. Do I think they got their money's worth? Yes.