In paragraph 2 he seems to imply that the curriculum isn't broad enough, lamenting the loss of "useless" classes, but then in paragraph 4 he seems to claim it's

In paragraph 2 he seems to imply that the curriculum isn't broad enough, lamenting the loss of "useless" classes, but then in paragraph 4 he seems to claim it's too broad and that new classes are useless, as evidenced from his claim that no one is making money off of Statistics or Machine Learning, and his implication that someone who didn't start their own company would have been better off as a police officer. He seems to imply that perhaps grading is not as strict as it used to be, referring to some higher education as "virtuous slacking", but doesn't provide any supporting information to make such a claim. He calls higher education a status symbol, referencing the increasing prices, mentioning that many take out loans for higher education, briefly going out of his way to mention government. He reinforces with a claim that people go to college because others do, rather than because they've simultaneously converged on the idea that it's a good investment. He doesn't provide any evidence that higher education is actually viewed as a status symbol. More significantly, though, the author doesn't propose or imply any solution for the system as a whole, or even one of his pain points. The article is vacuous and unfocused. What I've learned from this article: The author doesn't like the current state of higher education, and his mother had to walk uphill both ways to get to school.