In the private sector, when businessmen find they’ve lost their market for a product, they produce something else: That’s why we don’t see manual typewriters anymore.
When the government adopts an industry, it tries a different approach that ignores supply and demand. Thus, in New Mexico, legislators are seriously debating a bill that would force high school students to apply to college. In the words of Wayne and Garth, Yeah, as if…
“The lawmakers are worried about the fact that fewer students in New Mexico are going to college,” George Leef writes in an essay distributed by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. “This USA Today piece about the bill informs us that ‘The measure was drafted with the aim of reversing declines in college enrollment across the state, which fell nearly 14 percent from 155,065 enrolled students in 2010 to 133,830 in 2016.’”
Could it be that the teenagers understand something the adults don’t, namely, diminishing returns? “Writing on Forbes.com, Preston Cooper points out that about a third of recent college graduates are underemployed,” Leef notes. “Choosing not to go to college makes perfect sense if you want to avoid spending years of time and lots of money in college only to end up working in a job you could do without this ‘investment.’”
“He points to data compiled by the New York Federal Reserve Bankshowing that just having a college degree does not get you a good job.”
