Well in stable market conditions, the tail of the group of people who get diplomas, ranged by their ROI, will get somewhat negative overall ROI. That's how it should be - i.e. most people - the smarter ones for who education makes sense, get positive ROI, and some relatively small group of people who can't really benefit from education but have fooled themselves into thinking they can, get zero or slightly negative ones. Then comes a group of people who clearly can't benefit and know it. The system reached a stable state - colleges get maximum number of clients they possibly can and get max revenue, it doesn't make sense for many more people to join in, and it doesn't make sense for many existing to stay if prices go further up.

As with oil production for example (see 'marginal barrel') people at the end of this tail don't really benefit, but the system in general is still good, most people benefit.

It's not that 'the poors were duped'. It's that until very recently, a piece of paper was a very effective salary multiplier.

Define very recently and effective for whom. University of Phoenix has been around since 1976 and has been popular with people who didn't have the resources to get into traditional colleges since at least the late 90s. I think with nearly 17 years of success and probably millions of for profit alumni can safely be defined as duped.

I'm not saying anyone should go to the university of phoenix; there are better publicly subsidized options out today, but I do know a handful of people who were partly educated there, who did just fine.

I appreciate your comment. I've a few questions to help me understand your perspective.

Is the crux of the issue the fact that lower socioeconomic groups are less able to rebound from a financial impact? Or something more specific about targeting lower s.e. groups?

Empathy breeds terrible policy.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

If you don't have empathy then the best course of action for policy makers is whatever gets them the most power without getting kicked out of office. While current politics around the globe look more and more like they are following that path, let's not confuse what's actually happening with what is actually good

Is it consistent to want the best public policy for everyone, but also blame empathy for the creation of terrible policy?

Empathy and compassion are mandatory for sound policy.

Edit because of HN throttling: I haven't seen unsavory elected folks generate sound policy yet, so I'm sticking to my statement.

Maybe just compassion: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/paul_bloom_on_e.htm...

The politics of being outright evil assholes has gained a lot of traction lately.