A funny thing about college is that the absolute value of a degree keeps dropping, but the relative gap between "has degree" and "lacks degree" keeps growing.

A funny thing about college is that the absolute value of a degree keeps dropping, but the relative gap between "has degree" and "lacks degree" keeps growing. It's analogous to monetary inflation: give almost everybody a bunch of new money and you don't make them much richer -- the currency just buys less than it used to. But people who don't get any of the new money end up significantly worse off. There is a fundamental tension between egalitarianism and elitism when it comes to college. Fifty years ago, any college degree was a signal of elite status. Today, only the most exclusive colleges still provide that signal, which is why the pressure around them is greater than ever. I agree with the author's basic premise that college-as-we-know-it won't continue, because the economics don't line up. But it will be the large middle-tier of colleges that die or change. The high end is still going strong because it still signals elitism. And the low end -- the community colleges -- still provides reasonable value for the money.