by J.M. Schell

Created on: July 30, 2009   Last Updated: August 01, 2009

Is a college education still cost-effective? There is only one possible answer: it depends.

First, it depends on who is paying for your education. If you are wealthy enough or have obtained scholarships to a private institution, it's all up to you. However, if you are poor or middle class and aren't a standout athelete, and are forced to attend a state institution, that's different.

Nobody likes to talk about it, but states subsidize a huge portion of the cost of being educated at a state college or university. Along with financial aid and the GI bill, this has allowed many Americans who otherwise would not have the opportunity, to seek higher education. That was a good thing. For a time. Before World War II, college was something only for the rich. The GI Bill permitted tens of thousands of GIs returning from the war to attend college. However, in the 1960s, states began subsidizing education at their colleges and universities, including the apex of this approach, California, where any resident of the state could attend for free. Of course, that helped bankrupt California.

The 1967 counter-culture book and movie The Graduate pooh-poohing a college education even as it pointed to its necessity today. In the movie, Dustin Hoffman's character has just graduated from an unnamed college with an unidentified degree. A tipsy, bloviating uncle tells Hoffman's directionless character to go into plastics. Despite the counter-culture theme of the film, the reality is that in 1967, for most jobs outside specific sciences and engineering fields, it really didn't matter what degree Hoffman's character had taken. A degree in any discipline, from English to Math or from History to Business or from Economics to Biology would open management-level, career-track doors in virtually any industry.

But that was then, this is now. Today, a bachelor's degree in most disciplines outside the hard sciences and engineering carries about the same economic weight as did a general high school diploma before the early 1960s. And for a very long time tuition remained low enough to put college into reach for many Americans. Over the past decade, however, tuition and associated costs at virtually every college and university in the country have skyrocketed. Some estimates place the average increase at 30% or more. If America wants to keep its lead as an educated population, it may be time to look at ways to trim the fat.

One way to do that would be to cut

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