By Ben Miller Over at ThinkProgress, Matt Yglesias highlights a report on whether the labor market could handle a significant increase in the number of individuals holding bachelor’s degrees that was released Tuesday during an event at the Center for American Progress. (Incidentally, CAP appears to be starting some higher ed initiative, I’m guessing at least partially financed by AT&T given that a senior executive vice president from there spoke at the event.) While the report argues that gains from a college degree have slowed but are still sizeable, it ultimately concludes that “the economic case for expanding higher education access is strong.” Access certainly is an important goal, but as the exponential growth of for-profit schools shows, just getting large numbers of individuals into a college ultimately means very little. In other words, expanding college enrollment—which has grown by 800 percent since 1963—means nothing without concerted policies to retain those new students.
