Every modern society needs it's signaling mechanic, otherwise it becomes virtually impossible for people to want to take risks, eliminating all ladder access fo

Every modern society needs it's signaling mechanic, otherwise it becomes virtually impossible for people to want to take risks, eliminating all ladder access for the underprivileged. Signals only work if they're hard to fake. The expense of a college degree in both time and dollars perversely increases its utility as a signal. Of course, the price of a degree can only go so high before before people are unwilling to pay it. But the natural tendency will not be for the price to come back down, but rather for new, more accessible educational options to show up with lower signaling values. It already happened before with the difference between ivy league schools vs the rest and public vs. private. Society will get even more stratified, with ever finer class distinctions becoming an indelible part of your pedigree. Technology will make it ever easier to buck the trend and become entrepreneurial, but even that will slowly get folded into the system. We see this with how craft brewing ended up getting rolled into the existing system, preserving the lion's share of the profits for the big bottlers. Ever-decreasing social mobility is the price we pay for advancement.