Higher ed ROI

I graduated from a state university with a BA and from a different state university with a PhD. After that, I did a postdoc at an elite private university and served as faculty for 37 years at a different private university. My daughter got her BA from a public university and her JD from an elite private university. So I’ve seen both public and private higher ed from the inside.

My impression, both from personal experience and from reading the data is that the tuition premium charged by private colleges and universities is not repaid in post-graduation earnings. Today, the reputational branding of elite colleges and universities is being questioned.

“Regardless of whether one sees these developments as an overdue correction or as a scramble to minimize the damage being wrought by the Trump administration, this much is clearly true: The proclamations of a handful of wealthy, hyperselective universities tell us almost nothing about the state of American higher education writ large. 

“Even the decline in public confidence, I would argue, is based more on how the elites are viewed than on the characteristics of the sector as a whole. The top two causes of dissatisfaction — high cost and political agendas — have much more to do with Duke or Brown than with Wake Technical Community College or the Community College of Rhode Island. Confidence in community colleges, unsurprisingly, is much higher than confidence in four-year colleges and universities.”

On the “political agendas,” I’ve never read anything documenting a political agenda in chemistry, biology, mathematics or engineering. I did take humanities courses as an undergrad and never encountered a political agenda, although none of those courses were in political science.

Cost is a big factor in access to higher ed. Increasingly, state universities are shifting costs from state taxpayers to tuition. If cost is a barrier, doing your first two years at a community college represents a significant savings and could open the door to merit scholarships. Ultimately, higher ed does provide a value added for employment over a high school diploma, but the cost differential between private and public universities is more a matter of branding than education.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/13/opinion/elite-higher-ed-misrepresentative/

 

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