Every year, another wave of families signs on the dotted line, committing to one of the most significant financial decisions of their lives. The debate over whether a four-year degree is worth that investment has never been louder, and the critics are not wrong to raise it. Yet most employers have not moved. They still use the degree as a baseline screening credential, a proof of concept that signals a candidate can commit, perform, and endure. The real problem is not the credential itself; it is that most families enter this process without a clear picture of what they are actually buying.
University as a business
The word “nonprofit” is a bit misleading to most American families. A nonprofit tax status does not mean an institution operates without financial ambition. Universities generate revenue, manage multibillion-dollar endowments, compete for market share, pay executive-level salaries, and build global brands. The modern university is simultaneously a research institution, a workforce pipeline, a cultural center, and an economic engine, all operating under one roof. None of that is inherently wrong, but it does mean the student walking onto campus is not simply a pupil — they are a stakeholder inside a highly sophisticated enterprise. Families now routinely carry $250,000 or more in education debt for a credential that no longer guarantees the career outcome it once did. Federal grants and subsidized loans were introduced to widen access, but economists and policymakers have long debated their effect. The Bennett Hypothesis, first advanced by Ronald Reagan’s education secretary, William Bennett, in a 1987 New York Times op-ed, argued that expanded federal aid gave universities the financial incentive to raise tuition year after year, confident that students could absorb the increase through borrowed money. Research since then has been mixed, but the debate has never gone away, and the price trajectory continues to rise. The business of admissions
