The conservative case for better measures of success in higher education.
A generation ago, most parents knew how to provide an opportunity for their child: Send your kid to college. This was certainly true for me. I was raised in the 1980s by a single mother who worked in a factory in rural Indiana. For our family, college was not possible without Pell Grants and other financial aid. But my mother never doubted that her boys were going to college because she had an abiding belief that a college degree would give us a better life.
Sadly, that belief is no longer universal. A growing number of Americans have lost faith in our nation’s colleges and universities. Even though the degree remains among our most powerful levers for economic mobility, education consumers are struggling to see the value in an era of rising tuition and student loan debt. One recent survey found that less than half of Americans now believe that earning a bachelor’s degree will lead to higher earnings over their lifetime.