Higher education "premium"

The supposed "premium" for in lifetime earnings from attending college has clearly been declining, most likely because we're now producing many more college graduates (at least in certain fields) than our economy can really handle. The "supply" of college graduates is oustripping the "demand" for them, hence the decline in the average "premium" and the search on the part of many for more financially feasible means to get that degree. On-line, as a result, continues to increase. Peter Wood's answer is that we should all try to be elite, academically-rigorous institutions because, he believes, everything else is going to get gobbled up by the on-line behemoths. Hmm. . . Call me skeptical, both that on-line will take over the way Wood seems to believe and that the rest of us can create (or be seen to be creating) an "academically rigorous" college climate. What would that really take? How would people really know? I can't get the faculty at my own institution to understand the nuances of such issues and agree on what we should do. Now multiply my problems by, say, a million. Creating that "brand" and having it really stick is really, really hard.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/too-much-for-too-little/30220?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en