quote:
I do also think that education as we know it is going to transform dramatically in the coming decades. Student loans will become unsustainable as tuition soars and more and more students go to get a college degree (since it is pretty much a requirement for a good job) which in turn will water down the potency of that degree in securing a good job. The digital age will change things (not talking about the failed attempts of Everest etc). Spending 4 years going to college racking up debt is an old concept that many will look for a competitive alternative. Once that competitive alternative is there, affordable and accepted, enrollment in our traditional brick and mortar schools will begin to fall. There will be an education bubble that will burst and those that are trying to grow as fast as possible will be left with an overinflated infrastructure that they can no longer support.

This.

For the 2014-15 academic year, tuition and fees for an Alabama resident at AU was $10,200 ($5100 per semester for Fall and Spring semesters).

In 1979, when I started at AU, when we were still on the quarter system, in-state tuition and fees for the entire academic year (Fall, Winter and Spring quarters) was $600.

No, that's not a typo. Six. Hundred. Dollars. A. Year.

That's an increase of roughly 1700% over three and a half decades. For perspective, over that same period the the average starting salary for a college graduate has risen only about 300% in nominal terms (currently about $45,000).

Yeah, this is not going to end well.