Universities, in their current incarnation, offer a poor return on investment. When a degree was scarce, it was valuable. As was when a degree guaranteed a cer

Universities, in their current incarnation, offer a poor return on investment. When a degree was scarce, it was valuable. As was when a degree guaranteed a certain level of knowledge and skill. But that really isn't the case nowadays. The vast majority of degree programs exist simply to collect tuition dollars, and the students that undertake these programs would be better-served by a vocational or professional education system. The standard counter-argument here is that you gain social skills in university... but the same is true when you join the workforce. Germany gets this one right, by the way. That is not to say that the idea of a university has outlived its utility! We need spaces where curious minds can seek answers from and challenge themselves against well-practiced experts. That's part of how you set a country up for future success. But that's not what we have now, not from my experience in the United States. What we need are Schools of Athens, but what we have are Temples of Amun. So it's not all that surprising that, in the information age, curious people look to both the cost of a degree, and to the legions of unemployed graduates, and figure they can do better.