Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Further thoughts on the higher education bubble — from the washingtonexaminer.com by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee.
Back at the beginning of the summer, I had a column in this space in which I predicted that higher education is in a bubble, one soon to burst with considerable consequences for students, faculty, employers, and society at large. My reasoning was simple enough: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. And the past decades’ history of tuition growing much faster than the rate of inflation, with students and parents making up the difference via easy credit, is something that can’t go on forever. Thus my prediction that it won’t.
But then what? Assume that I’m right, and that higher education – both undergraduate and graduate, and including professional education like the law schools in which I teach – is heading for a major correction. What will that mean? What should people do?