This is the type of thing that come up every time a post-university world is mentioned. College is so much more than... It's true but not true in a way that in

This is the type of thing that come up every time a post-university world is mentioned. College is so much more than... It's true but not true in a way that invalidates the arguments that college will become less important/desired. People spend 1-2 years trying to get into college programs and then 4 years of their life at college. Parents save for decades. Students go into debt for it. Governments give it priority in their budgets. The costs are huge. The only reason so many people will put so much emphasis on anything is that it eventually impacts their socio-economic status. Some people take a year off to travel. This can be good for character development too. It costs far less in time and money. The reason its not an institution like college is because it doesn't directly impact socio-economic in the same way. Especially with old, elite schools this is as much about impacting students' social identity & skills as it is about their intellectual and technical skills. Its often best to approach the socio-economic status thing from an angle. All these things can't be decoupled. If college stops becoming the path to getting high paying, high status jobs, it will not be worth the cost. I think the erosion will start farther down the food chain than Harvard though.