Tragedy of The Commons
An economic musing about the societal costs of large college enrollments.
That’s not even taking into acount the changes in college environment. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but it’s a small start:
1.) Colleges still want to make it possible for students to graduate, so they dumb down the classes in order to reach more people
2.) 500-person lectures, ‘nough said.
3.) The people who come to college because they “need” to, but when they get here all they do is party, which makes studying more difficult for everyone…and pop my bike tires because apparently being drunk makes it seem like breaking a bottle in the street is a wonderful idea.
4.) So much more competitive, which is a bad thing when there are externalities (in this case stress).
5.) I could go on, but you get the jist.
Image via Wikipedia
Perhaps “Tragedy of the Commons” isn’t the best term, but it sounds dramatic and it’s certainly related: this is still an infinitely repeated simultaneous game, though perhaps not the traditional prisoner’s dilemma-type game. What are the long term consequences of sending as many people as possible to college? How is this going to change the aggregated economy? How is this going to affect different industries? What is the optimal ratio between college-goers and college-not-goers?
Liked it
