>Critical thought is the fundamental of education. I haven't seen any school that explicitly and effectively teaches critical thought. Many seem rather offende

>Critical thought is the fundamental of education. I haven't seen any school that explicitly and effectively teaches critical thought. Many seem rather offended by it. As to your main point, I wonder if you've heard of Brian Caplan's "The Case Against Education"? In it, he (a Ph.D professor of Economics) ruthlessly analyzes exactly what you mention in the end, examining the actual provided value of higher education and concludes that for both the individual and society, it's rather shockingly overvalued. If you want a very data-driven analysis of the question of the current value of higher education, I haven't seen a better one.