It is becoming abundantly clear that many, if not most college students and their families are wasting a tremendous amount of money on a non-asset:
Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. That figure is from a study cited by Clifford Adelman, a former research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and now a senior research associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Yet four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year!
Even worse, most of those college dropouts leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain of debt and devastated self-esteem from their unsuccessful struggles. Perhaps worst of all, even those who do manage to graduate too rarely end up in careers that require a college education.
It will be interesting to see what those of you who have taken a collegiate history course think about the Thucydides study that we’re doing here. It may not be as good as a college class on Greek history, on the other hand, it’s infinitely less expensive. As Mr. Nemko makes clear, a college education may be one of the most fraudulently advertised products available in America today.