College Is A Consumption Good?

That's Jason Kuznicki's belief:

College is a socially expected consumption good, but still, what we’re seeing now is the real reason exposed when all the secondary reasons (Earn a paycheck! Join the world of 9-5 office work!) have evaporated. Most people go to college for personal fulfillment — to achieve all kinds of ends way high up on Maslow’s hierarchy. The rest is secondary.

Glenn Reynolds echoes Kuznicki's argument and sticks up for trade schools:

There are many paths to increased earnings that don’t involve college, and that have smaller upfront costs: Skilled trades such as electrical work and plumbing face a constant shortage of qualified workers as Americans increasingly disdain manual labor, and these fields pay wages that compare very favorably to those earned by college graduates. There’s an additional advantage to these hands-on jobs: They’re harder to outsource. If you’re a so-called knowledge worker in the global information economy, you’re in competition with smart people all over the planet. If you fix cars or HVAC units, you’re competing only with the folks in your neighborhood.