THE BURSTING OF THE COLLEGE BUBBLE IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY

A TTPer sent my denunciation of US higher education – Building A Conservative Cultural Infrastructure – to a friend who became so irate that she demanded the TTPer cancel his TTP membership.  He declined.

Democrats dominate politically in large part because "liberals and those further left dominate our public schools, colleges and universities, Hollywood and the news media," I said.  Young people voted against their interests because of "incessant indoctrination" – as a result of which they are "massively ignorant of history, civics, economics, geography, physics and basic math." 

The opportunity to break the liberal stranglehold on the dominant institutions of our culture may arise soon, I said, because "newspapers are technologically obsolescent. So are colleges and universities. Both will be shaken in the hard times coming." 

If those truths are offensive to that irate lady, well, that’s her misfortune because I sure intend to keep telling them.

For more than 20 years, the cost of attending college has risen twice as fast as the cost of health care, four times as fast as the cost of living, 20 times as fast as the wages of the average college graduate. 

Much of the increase in health care costs is due to profound (but very expensive) advances in medical technology.  American universities "represent declining value for money to their students," declared the Economist magazine Dec. 1.

In their study of 3,000 students at 29 colleges and universities, Professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that after two years, 45 percent, and after four years, 36 percent "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning."

The average cost of a year at a public university last year was $17,131, according to the College Board.  For a year at a private college, the average cost was $38,589.  Most of the middle class would already be priced out, were it not for the federal student loan program, which is of far greater benefit to faculty and staff. 

Student debt has increased 74 percent since the 2008 recession began, according to a Citibank study, but only about half of recent graduates have found jobs.  There are as many student loan debtors as adults with bachelor’s degrees.

The 90 day delinquency rate on student loan repayment has "gone parabolic."  If the economy falls back into recession next year, soaring defaults will skyrocket.

The college bubble is about to burst.  When it does, the carnage will be awesome, because the Internet has rendered the present structure of higher education obsolescent.  When, with a few keystrokes, a student can access the Library of Congress, he needn’t go to the library at State U to study.  A student at a second or third tier college need not settle for inferior instruction when she can "virtually" attend lectures from the greatest experts in her field, wherever they might be.

The cost of a college education could be cut substantially, and its quality improved.  But the opposite is happening, because taking full advantage of the Internet would permit — would indeed require — a dramatic reduction in the size of college faculty and staff.  Since colleges and universities are run chiefly for the benefit of the faculty and administration – rather than the students – reform is bitterly resisted.

We like the old and familiar.  We fear the unknown.  In institutions, resistance to change is proportional to insulation from market forces.  In education, insulation has been profound.  But eventually, reality intrudes.  The chief consequence of delaying adaptation to it is, typically, a bigger crash when the crash inevitably comes.

The ability as well as the willingness of most in the middle class to pay ever more for ever less is at, or very near, the saturation point.  But most college administrators and faculty think the Democrat victory Nov. 6 means the student debt bubble can be inflated indefinitely.  There’s no need for reform — at least not yet.  The plunge in enrollment that’s just around the corner will be a shock.

Some subjects — especially in the hard sciences where a lot of lab work is required — are not conducive to online instruction.  Many students require the stimulation, motivation and supervision that can be provided only in actual — as opposed to virtual — classrooms.  There’s much to be said for the socialization experience of campus life. 

But the schools which weather the storm will be those making it possible for students to do the equivalent of 2 to 5 semesters of work (depending on their major) online, and which provide ample and meaty online courses with which to satisfy requirements. Such schools will be emerging soon.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette