The Education Bubble?

Has higher education become the equivalent of a giant Ponzi scheme? Perhaps.

For generations, the promise that their pricey diploma held the key to the American dream, has attracted students and their families to follow that dream, no matter what the cost. Plus, the “cheap and readily available credit” made the borrowing process a snap.

That may be about to change. In fact, savvy students and their parents are already hitting the brakes.

No wonder.

Money magazine reports that the amount families pay in financial aid increased by 439 percent since 1982.

NakedLaw.com recently listed several reasons why the college tuition bubble is about to burst, said Erin O’Connor on her website Critical Mass.

For one thing, tuition increases at double the rate of inflation mean that “the cost of college doubles every nine years.” Plus, “for-profit colleges are paying homeless people to take out federal loans to enroll.”

Also, colleges are on a “non-teaching staff hiring spree that far outpaces enrollment.” During the past 20 years while higher education enrollment has increased by 40 percent, many schools have “doubled their non-teaching staff.” Many of these staff members have newly assigned duties of questionable value like “monitoring environmental sustainability.”

There’s more.

As if the burden of mortgage debt fueled by easy credit wasn’t enough of a burden, many of America’s college graduates have landed in “Real World 101” saddled with the equivalent of another mortgage, plus a low-paying job–or no job at all.

Plus, schools are over-spending on luxury perks that have nothing to do with improving education. “At High Point University in North Carolina, students are treated to valet parking, live music in the cafeteria and Starbucks gift cards on their birthdays.”

Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.