In "The College Calculation," David Leonhardt examines the "skeptical case" against higher education and concludes that a college education is indeed better than nothing. But in addressing the skeptics, Leonhardt undermines his own case and unwittingly reinforces the idea that a college education has to be expensive, forcing students into a terrible choice between a well-educated lifetime of debt (and horrendous hours to make the money to pay it back) on the one hand, and no college education at all on the other. Leading one to wonder: why can't we simply commit to completely open access to higher education even when our own studies and our own arguments lead us in that direction?
Leonhardt's skeptics argue that there is no real difference between a four-year education and locking high-achieving students in a box for the same amount of time. Either way, the high-achievers are what they are, and a college education does not contribute to their success.
In making the case, Leonhardt appeals to a study that supposedly backs the skeptical view. He says:
In one paper after another, economists have tried to identify the portion of a person’s success for which schooling can fairly claim credit. One well-known study, co-written by Alan Krueger, a Princeton professor now serving as the Treasury Department’s chief economist, offered some support for the skeptics. It tracked top high-school students through their 30s and found that their alma maters had little impact on their earnings. Students who got into both, say, the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State made roughly the same amount of money, regardless of which they chose. Just as you might hope, the fine-grain status distinctions that preoccupy elite high-school seniors (and more to the point, their parents) seem to be overrated.
This form of skepticism argues that the choice of institution doesn't matter. One can pay a lot or a little, learn from PhD's who were hired because of their pedigree or from PhD's who were hired because they are smart and creative regardless of pedigree, be taught in classrooms with gum under the desk or classrooms festooned with silk, and it makes little difference in lifetime earnings and success. This, by the way, is true.
Leonhardt follows up this version of the skeptical argument with the following:
The rest of the evidence, however, has tended to point strongly in the other direction. Several studies have found a large earnings gap between more- and less-educated identical twins.
But wait: the evidence offered in support of the skeptic made another point altogether, namely that the choice of institution is less important than we might imagine. One can go to Harvard or Cal. State Fullerton and still be well off, all other things accounted for. And yet, Leonhardt replies to the other skeptic, the one who says that college does not matter at all, and one might take away from this the idea that indeed, the choice of college does matter (which, to the high-school senior, means that she has to go into punishing debt in order to succeed). And he makes the even more annoying claim that someone educated at Penn State is "less well educated" than someone educated at U. Penn.
There are thus two forms of skepticism. One is that a college education does not matter. Leonhardt effectively addresses this in the article: it does matter and it should be encouraged. But he strangely appeals to another form of skepticism--the claim that the prestige factor is imaginary--in making his case, leading to an ambiguity in his conclusion. Is he arguing that a college degree from a prestigious institution is better than nothing, or that a college degree from any university is better than nothing? The evidence supports the latter, and yet Leonhard makes the mistake of equating "higher education" with prestigious institutions, and "no education at all" with state institutions.
The evidence continually points toward open access, toward an urgent need for state subsidy of higher education, and for wholesale transformation in higher education to respond to 21st century demands (however we conceive them, and that's another discussion). So when the evidence points toward an egalitarian conclusion and away from the fantasy that the most expensive schools are also the only ones that really matter, we should follow the evidence where it leads.