"Why aren't there 100 Harvard franchises?" is reasonable to ask, but is also largely a red herring, irrelevant as an indicator of a bubble. The total market im

"Why aren't there 100 Harvard franchises?" is reasonable to ask, but is also largely a red herring, irrelevant as an indicator of a bubble. The total market impact of the tuition paid by Harvard College students might number in the tens of millions, while student loan debt in the US is measured in billions. The answer to the question is that what makes Harvard Harvard cannot be franchised. You can't franchise the interpersonal interaction with dozens of the highest quality professors and postdocs in the world. You can't franchise Cambridge and Harvard Square. You can't franchise the interaction with the other students. To the extent that the education and experience can be imitated, they already are, at hundreds of Universities in the US and around the world. But again, the whole question is a diversion. The core question is whether the higher education purchased by millions of students every year is worth the investment, not whether Harvard or any of a select few Ivy League schools is worth it.