Newsweek’s cover story – “Is College a Lousy Investment?” by Megan McArdle – is quite good.
A couple of highlights from the article:
“It’s very easy to
spend four years majoring in English literature and beer pong and come out no
more employable than you were before you went in. Conversely, chemical
engineers straight out of school can easily make triple or quadruple the wages
of an entry-level high-school graduate.”
“When I was a senior,
one of my professors asked wonderingly, “Why is it that you guys spend so much
time trying to get as little as possible for your money?” The answer, Caplan
says, is that they’re mostly there for a credential, not learning. “Why does
cheating work?” he points out. If you were really just in college to learn
skills, it would be totally counterproductive. “If you don’t learn the
material, then you will have less human capital and the market will punish
you—there’s no reason for us to do it.” But since they think the credential
matters more than the education, they look for ways to get the credential as
painlessly as possible.”