Dr Boyce Watkins: Is it Worth it to go to College?

from The New York Times

What kind of returns do you expect on your educational investment?

A National Public Radio segment on Tuesday, titled “Is a College Education Worth the Debt?” questioned the necessity of a college degree in an economic downturn.

Korva Coleman asked her guests, two college professors and one graduate student, “If college education doesn’t always get you a job, but it almost always gets you in debt, is it worth going to college?”

Update | 2:06 p.m. (My colleague, David Leonhardt, offers his own answer to this question in his blog, Economix. In fact, he points out, “the gap between the pay of college graduates and everyone else has reached an all-time high, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.”)

Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University, took the view that college isn’t necessarily worth the cost. “I think some kids are going to college that probably shouldn’t go to college,” he said. He spoke with a scientific concern for the oversupply of college graduates, which, he said, currently outstrips demand.

“We are starting to graduate, I don’t want to say too many students, but it’s becoming more and more difficult for new college graduates to get jobs, independent of the recession.”

Click to read.