The American Mind, a publication of The Claremont Institute, publishes a very interesting essay by Colin Redemer concerning the declining value of higher education, and more importantly, the mechanism by which that decline is caused.
The argument focuses on a decline in free social capital available, and the consequent need to purchase replacements at inflated prices.
Young people only appear to be doing fine in official statistics because those measures fail to capture the collapse of “social capital”—the free inheritance of trusted neighbors, functional public schools, safe streets, and marriageable norms that previous generations received at no cost.Because that commons has been liquidated and privatized, young people must now repurchase its components individually at market prices. Expensive homes in good districts, private schooling, daycare, credentials, and more—all of it requires substantial financial resources, even as incomes have risen only modestly. Meanwhile, the cost of these essentials has increased many times over.
Higher education is much more expensive today than it was when I was a 20 year old. Meanwhile, the BA/BS is worth less in terms of career access and graduate degrees have also been devalued. Reason: supply exceeds demand.
----------
If I have any criticism of the Redemer treatment, it would be ignoring the impact of the late 1940s GI Bill which flooded the employment market with degreed people without much concern for how doing so devalued the formerly esteemed high school diploma.
The GI Bill was an inspired way to prevent runaway unemployment as veterans in their hundreds of thousands left the military and resumed civilian life. It's unintended societal consequences, however, were profound and far-reaching.
