As for earning a degree by partying for 4 years, I stand by that claim. College isn't that hard and plenty of idiots pass while learning very little. Believe me, I passed quite a few.
The fix: end subsidies for college. I don't care if you waste your money on a worthless degree, I only care if you waste mine.
As for partying for 4 years and passing - Yes, there are some who party for four years, learn nothing and pass college. There are even some who do it on scholarship or government grants. But those are the exception, not the rule.
In my experience the ones who partied like crazy and learned nothing were the ones there on their parent's dime. The ones who were there on government dime rarely left the library, worked their butts off and came away with an excellent education.
It's true, your mileage may vary, but if you ask me it is of great benefit to society that everyone gets the best level of education they can handle as determined by the quality of their mind and determination, not the quality of their parent's bank account.
After all when you're of the age to be applying to college you haven't had the chance to begin being a productive member of society or make any money of your own. The whole point of education is to make people productive members of society. So what determines whether you can pay your own way in college is whether or not your parents were productive members of society -- and no one should be limited by their parents. We'd lose a lot of very bright people that way.
That's what government subsidies are for. They are an investment by all of society in our future. And in the people of our future. Think of it like venture capital investment. Not every investment works out. But if even a few really do succeed, then the investment in all those who don't is worth it. Of course the place where the analogy fails is that unlike with venture capital where only a few will succeed, with college subsidies only a few will fail.
I don't necessarily disagree with you about ending subsidies, but it seems as if you are trying to have your cake and eat it. Maybe I've misunderstood your position. If they were abolished, would you expect college to get cheaper and academics to tolerate a pay cut, or students to make up the shortfall by borrowing higher sums?
It probably was. It's not as clear cut as the case of the waiter, but I don't think my current work creates a benefit for the taxpayer as large as the subsidy I received. When I was still an academic, I created a larger external benefit [1], but it's far from clear that it was positive.
If subsidies were abolished, I expect college would become cheaper and more efficient, most academics would find new employment, and most marginal students would not attend college.
[1] Currently I work as a trader, and most of the benefits I provide are captured by myself and my company. None of my academic research projects have resulted in anything useful yet, though admittedly the jury is still out (people are still exploring some of the lines of inquiry I created).
This is a foolish comment, even beyond your arbitrary splitting up the cost of a degree between 40 "middle class families", or the insinuation that one can actually earn a degree by simply "partying for 4 years."
The value of education goes beyond landing one a job. Simply having well-educated citizens is of value to society -- especially in a representative democracy, where our level of education has a direct impact on how wisely we choose our own leaders. In fact, that education for its own sake is of great value to society is the core assumption behind public education.
Besides which, how exactly would you propose to "fix" the "problem" of well-educated people choosing overqualified jobs? With a state-controlled labor market, dictating what kind of people are allowed to work what kind of jobs?