As cost of university education spirals out of control, I expect that different forms of education, producing comparable levels of knowledge without all the expensive frills, will emerge, and be accepted by most employers. Of course places like MIT or Stanford won't be affected. A lot of smaller-caliber colleges will be.

You could learn most things in a library for free. One of the big advantages of a University is being around other ambitious people at the same point in their career. The “big club” aspect is an important part of the value proposition.

We should definitely dump athletic departments, though, they are completely unrelated to the mission.

As a faculty member at my institution put it: "Where in the land-grant university mission is giving our students traumatic brain injuries?"

One of the big advantages of a university is that they give you credentials you can show to your employer (including university itself if you want to be a scientist). Everything else is 90% wishful thinking.

That leads to product bundling you describe, which should be vigorously fought with antitrust laws.

If it's a big club, it's hard to justify the vast and ongoing federal support to the institutions through the grants, loan programs, and tax advantaged status.

This!

I love the honesty in this thread, higher Eds main value prop, outside of stem, has been the connections made.

However, no one to my knowledge has validate that assumption and my gut is telling me it's probably BS for the majority of people.

Let's see how that holds up when QE doesn't come back. IMO it's mostly around deal flow and finance where this plays out and I'd guess the percentage is very small that walk away with that value.