This readable, provocative, and exceptionally timely book by former U.S. education secretary Bill Bennett (and his young but astute coauthor) will rock the complacent aspiration of “college for all.” Intended more for students and parents than for policymakers and propeller heads (and equipped with a short, well-chosen list of “colleges worth attending” and a dozen “hypothetical scenarios” by which to make decisions about college enrollment), its fundamental argument is that much of contemporary U.S. higher education is a waste of time and money, that many people emerge from the campus with more in debts than in rewards, that there are plenty of viable and rewarding alternatives (especially to the classic “four-year bachelor’s degree”), and that big changes are afoot in the postsecondary realm—technology above all—that many who inhabit that realm seem all but blind to. He rebuts the contemporary dogma that “returns on higher education are higher than ever” by showing that, for many students (and of course millions of taxpayers), the costs outweigh the benefits. Right on, Mr. Secretary!
SOURCE: William J. Bennett and David Wilezol, Is College Worth It? (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, April 2013).
