This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 28, 2014, I'm Caleb Brown.

The cost of higher education continues to rise, but that's not the case everywhere.

Some schools have truly committed themselves to low-cost four-year

degrees and all without large-scale subsidies. Vance Freed is an adjunct

scholar at the Cato Institute and Director of the Institute for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at

Oklahoma State University. We spoke earlier this month.

I was speaking with a young person that I know fairly well and I asked him what are your plans for college and he says well I guess I'll just go there and figure things out

His father was sitting there at the time and I said that is a terrible

terrible plan because it's really it's no plan at all and given the expense

associated with higher education and the unclear or becoming less clear returns on higher

education, what would you tell young people about what their prospects are for getting a good education

with some solid return on that investment now and in the future.

Okay, well I'd start by saying, I don't know, I might tell that person, oh, it's okay to go figure

something out if you don't know what you're wanting, but don't spend more than a year figuring it out and

don't spend a whole bunch of money while you're figuring it out.

And if you haven't figured out for a year, go get a job, and then come back when you've figured it out.

Now, one thing you need to be aware of is on the cost side is there are some much lower cost options

that are coming out now and that are available to different types of students and you know I'm

hopeful that this will spread more through the industry.

Is part of the problem here, as we've talked about before, subsidies to higher education

that are taking universities or schools away from what ought to be a focus on providing valuable

education to students to young people?

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