The director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University, had a piece out earlier this month under the headline "The Great College Degree Scam."
He writes, "the push to increase the number of college graduates seems horribly misguided from a strict economic/vocational perspective...credential inflation arises from a perceived need by individuals to demonstrate potential employment competence through a piece of paper, i.e. a college diploma. Employers are using education as a screening and signaling device, at a low cost directly to them (although not costless because of the taxes they pay to sustain much of this), but at a high cost to the prospective employees and to society as a whole.....We are deceiving our young population to mindlessly pursue college degrees when very often that is advice that is increasingly questionable."