This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 30th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Between student debt and the less than clear benefits delivered by a standard college

degree,

Higher Ed has at least two big problems.

In the forthcoming book, Unprofitable Education,

editors Todd Zawiki and Neil McCluskey

walk us through some of the big problems facing higher ed. I spoke with Cato Senior

Fellow Todd Zewicki earlier this month. Unprofitable schooling is at least a double entendre.

So tell me what you're talking about.

Well, that's exactly right, Caleb, which is what this is a book about

unprofitable for students in the sense that we have this

exploding student loan debt problem and education is becoming more of a negative some investment for more people.

It's just a bad investment.

Also, unprofitable in the sense that one of the overarching and animating theme of the book

is how can we use competition and consumer choice. overarching and

animating theme of the book is how can we use competition and consumer choice to improve the higher ed system in the same way the

competition and consumer choice revolutionizes other areas of the economy.

And in particular, one of the things that the book tackles is the policies during the

Obama administration, which is when this book first started coming together, which essentially

consisted of a war against the for-profit colleges, while unprecedented levels of subsidies

to the non-profit colleges, community colleges, four-year colleges. at the

...