This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, April 22nd, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What should replace the bachelor's degree?

The degree itself doesn't really tell an employer what you know, but some certifications

that may actually take less time to complete could.

So says political scientist Charles Murray.

He spoke at the Cato Institute's New York

City seminar April 8th. Think about why we're supposed to have a residential

college in the first place. Well you need a library and a library requires a good-sized institution to support it.

The second thing is, you need colleagueships, because scholarship thrives in a situation where scholars can talk to each other.

And the third reason is that you could have personal interactions between

the faculty and the students.

All three of those justifications for the university are vanishing like snow in July.

Library, it can be a pleasant place to go and sit and study to get away from the dorm, but you don't need one anymore.

I do all of my work out in Birketsville, Maryland, and I do work that requires enormous access to all kinds of data resources and books and things.

I just go to Google Books.

I just go to J-Stor or one of the other programs which permits me to access all the

technical journals in the world.

And you're familiar probably with many of the others.

They are just incredible scholarly resources.

You don't need a library.

Colleagueships these days occur among people 5,000 miles apart that are more intimate

...