And yet, college is still worth it. While many folks like to point out the Baumol effect aka cost disease, it's also important to remember that college is overwhelmingly worth it, and the government ought to subsidize college educations. There's no better investment the government can make than subsidize more people to go to college. (Well, perhaps except for funding the IRS, but that's more of a zero-sum game.)
Lifetime net earnings increase for progressively higher levels of education, resulting in overall GDP growth and a wealthier society better able to pay for public goods and the social welfare of all. The vast majority of college students who attend a 2 or 4 year in-state program will net a significant increase in lifetime earnings and the amount they pay for that degree, even assuming they maximized their federal loans, will be dwarfed by their lifetime earnings increase.
Even for those folks getting masters degrees to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Department of Education finds that the lifetime net earnings increase by nearly $1.5 million over a high school education, and yes, actually, around $300k over a Bachelor's degree.
See: https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...
Lifetime net earnings increase for progressively higher levels of education, resulting in overall GDP growth and a wealthier society better able to pay for public goods and the social welfare of all. The vast majority of college students who attend a 2 or 4 year in-state program will net a significant increase in lifetime earnings and the amount they pay for that degree, even assuming they maximized their federal loans, will be dwarfed by their lifetime earnings increase.
Even for those folks getting masters degrees to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Department of Education finds that the lifetime net earnings increase by nearly $1.5 million over a high school education, and yes, actually, around $300k over a Bachelor's degree.