You bring up some good points. However, to call it a "good investment" requires comparing it to alternatives. Two decades ago, not many alternatives existed (l

You bring up some good points. However, to call it a "good investment" requires comparing it to alternatives. Two decades ago, not many alternatives existed (libraries? buying books? maybe private tutors?). A decade ago, the online world started opening up a ton of information, but it was basically a wild west of unstructured information. Now fast forward to the present. Information is beginning to have a bit more structure. More importantly online learning is becoming more social. As this trend progresses my best guess is that the comparative value of college will decline. Not because students in college are learning any less. Indeed thinks to technology they're probably learning more efficiently than ever. But, a lot of that learning can take place online and outside of formal academia at much, much lower costs. So, yes, college has been a nice investment, but I see the returns declining rapidly on that investment. Sort of like how investing in newspaper stock might have been a good play for most of the 20th century. The last decade, not so much so.