That's easy to evade by having staff researchers who profit from the success of college publish the marketing material instead.
The popular choice is the one where they show that smart people who have few life challenge are able to graduate college and also do well in the workplace while those who suffer from disabilities and other life challenges fail to graduate and also struggle in the workplace. Often entitled something to the effect of "Is a college degree worth it?"
The research is 100% valid. Smart people with few life challenges statistically do much better in virtually everything they try over people with crippling disabilities and other life challenges (drug addiction, poverty, etc.). That includes college and the workplace along with a whole lot of other things people like to do in life. There is good reason the Fortune 500 doesn't have down syndrome sufferers as CEOs, as unfortunate as that may be.
But it doesn't tell us much and only confuses the issue with selection bias. This is where it gets picked up by the layman who then thinks: "Look! College graduates have an easier life. If I go to college, my life will be easier too!" without realizing that not going to college won't actually cause contraction of down syndrome or push them into a new drug addiction and that colleges fail, if not deny entry to, anyone who struggles.
Very interested in this. Do you have links / books?
There are laws and regulations about marketing a college degree and a college’s accreditation and reputation relies on it. Thousands of human hours are spent every year at every accredited college to avoid inadvertently falling out of compliance and to be in the good graces of accreditors.
In fact, one could argue, and I will, that most of the added administrative cost you see in this articles expense chart is to ensure regulatory compliance.
And colleges that egregiously or repeatedly fall out of compliance either lose accreditation or are sued, sometimes out of existence. This almost always happens at for-profit schools not non-profits, though non-profits do get in trouble every once in awhile.
“I, my class, and their parents were told sternly — commanded is a fair word here — several times throughout every year that the goal of schooling is to send children to universities.”
This isn’t direct marketing. This is people saying what they believe to be true. You can debate the validity of this opinion all day, but these are people giving the best opinion they have. They are not getting paid to say it. There are no kickbacks.