The bubble in education is not at the Harvard and Stanford level. Membership in that club is probably worth the cost. The bubble is in the lower-ranked schools

The bubble in education is not at the Harvard and Stanford level. Membership in that club is probably worth the cost. The bubble is in the lower-ranked schools that cost almost as much but don't deliver the exclusivity of Harvard. The people who will be hurt the most when the bubble pops are those people who overpaid for the knowledge they learned in college: People who attended average state schools who have a $600/month education loan payment for 30 years who have to compete for jobs with people learned the same thing for $600 in total. Right now, there is no company that can give you for $600 the same education that a state school provides for $100,000. But such companies are coming. Khan Academy already is as good as any school in helping people learn. All that's missing is certification: comprehensive exams given in secure environments like normal standardized tests (SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, ...) Compared to teaching, certification is easy. The real big bubble in education is at the lower levels, at the elementary, middle, and high school level where schools are even more fungible than at the college level. Kids don't attend a middle school for the prestige. They go to learn. The bubble for the teacher unions will pop when states begin to ask why the state should pay union-level salaries for teachers to lecture when students actually do better with just a laptop and an internet connection.