You can get the first two for free on a library.
You are making a mistake when you compare the knowledge, understanding and wisdom you would get in College against nothing and then decide that College is better than nothing. You should compare it against all the other things people could be doing with that time and money. The opportunity cost.
With respect to the original article, yes absolutely.
I was responding to the parent comment who described people 'no better off' for knowing versus not knowing.
Maybe they will acquire work experience, life experience, pragmatical knowledge about how real world works, that kind of thing. Why is knowledge about covalent bonds intrinsically more important than that?
Sure.
But expecting some body to pay you just because you know all of that is tad bit too much to ask.
The right question to ask here is after all that, how employable are you?
Because you need skills to be employed. The ridiculousness of the situation is such a plumber is probably spending their time more valuably than say who studied Norse Mythology. Note I'm talking more in economic terms only. Sure the person who studied Norse Mythology knows more than a plumber, but you need a plumber more often than you need some one who knows Norse Mythology.
>>Why can't you say just the same thing about, say, teaching people to read?
That sets the basic platform for other stuff. You build on top of it.
>>Fifth-grade literacy is probably enough to do many jobs, so maybe we should toss out high school too.
If I was spending $X00,000 on a degree and expect a job in return which some one with fifth-grade literacy can do. I'd be seriously worried about my choices and decision making skills in life.
That all depends on how you measure better off.
Knowledge, understanding, wisdom are goods unto themselves. No doubt, we need to eat, but I'd rather know Latin, Norse mythology, Anselm's ontological proof, the Platonic solids, and the major players in the Glorious Revolution than not. And I'm better off for simply knowing them.