Don’t Fall for the College Con

March 11, 2010

We are told that the 3.6 percent uptick in last fall’s enrollment at Connecticut’s private and government-run institutions of higher learning is a good thing.

It isn’t.

Data indicate that on average, college grads earn more than the less-educated. So few quarrel with conventional wisdom: Spend the time and money, get the degree, and it’ll pay off in the end.

In most states, “higher education is for everyone” isn’t just advice. It’s public policy.

Starting in the 1990s, Connecticut’s government universities, already heavily subsidized, were bombarded with enhanced taxpayer-provided goodies. The unsustainable dot-com and stock-market booms enabled pols to fund “UConn 2000,” “UConn 21st Century,” and “CSUS 2020.” Enrollments soared. After all, who dared to doubt that, in the words of a former president of Southern Connecticut State University, “a direct correlation between higher education and economic growth is well established”?

As usual, the “visionaries” were clueless. In the last two decades, Connecticut had one of the worst state economies. That’s no surprise to Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. After examining “over 1,000 statistical observations for all 50 states over a 40-year time period,” he found that “state higher education appropriations are associated with lower economic growth.”

Connecticut provides proof that go-to-college groupthink leads to lousy “public investments.” But it’s not merely a fiscal debacle. The human toll is equally disturbing.

Last year, the chairman of the state’s Board of Governors for Higher Education bemoaned the postsecondary readiness of Connecticut’s high-school seniors. ACT scores for 2008 revealed that 35 percent of white, 18 percent of Latino, and 9 percent of black students were adequately prepared for the next stage of learning. “It’s an appalling figure to look at,” he lamented. “Basically it says that, at the very best, only one-third of our students are succeeding.”

There’s only so much remedial classes can do. When retraining fails, the only option is to drop out. Nearly 30 percent of UConn freshmen fail to graduate within six years. For the Connecticut State University system, it’s 57 percent. (After three years, the fail-to-complete rate for the Community-Technical College System is 90 percent.) And “I started but didn’t finish” doesn’t cut it in the workplace -- the median wage for Connecticut workers with a high-school diploma is only 6.2 percent less than those who spent a couple of semesters on campus.

Pols, greedy professors and administrators, and dimwitted education reporters seldom mention widespread dropoutism, nor are they interested in sociologist Charles Murray’s finding that pay “for the top people in a wide variety of occupations that do not require a college degree is higher than the average income for many occupations that require a B.A.” Murray cited 2005 federal research showing that an electrician who excelled at his craft earned $70,480, while a poorly performing white-collar manager made $37,800. For a young man who’s good with his hands, the choice between an electrical apprenticeship and majoring in business is easy. (Learning a trade also means he’ll start earning an income four -- or more -- years earlier, and largely avoid the enormous student-loan and credit-card debt many grads acquire.)

The diminishing returns of sheepskins are reflected in shifting educational-attainment levels for employment sectors. In 2008, Vedder found that workers with bachelor’s degrees were rising as a share of clerical and service jobs, and falling as a portion of management and professional positions.  

The phenomenon of philosophy-major cashiers isn’t difficult to grasp, when one considers the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. It found that only 31 percent of college graduates -- down from 40 percent in 1992 -- were capable of “reading lengthy, complex, abstract prose texts as well as synthesizing information and making complex inferences.” The president of the American Library Association called the statistic “appalling.” (There’s that word again.)

“For most people,” argues writer John Derbyshire, “college education is a waste of time and money. We don’t need more lawyers, accountants, investment bankers, and architects. … We need more plumbers, roofers, carpenters, auto repairmen, furniture makers, electricians, tree surgeons, mail carriers, landscapers, computer programmers and entrepreneurs, all of whom can much better be trained on the job.”

If you’re 18 years old and have a burning need to write a revisionist history of the Renaissance, obtaining a degree or three is the right call. But if you’re starting adulthood with nothing more than a vague desire for steady work and a decent standard of living, a college education isn’t necessarily for you. Examine the alternatives.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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