[trop]

I have a hard time imaging a world is with a huge crash in education. Does this mean fewer colleges and more students going into trades? Radically lower tuition? Fewer tenured professors, and more adjuncts and visiting professors with three-year contracts?

Speaking of the latter, there is the disruption of online course offerings. These are creeping in from the bottom, replacing introductory lectures, and working their way up. Online classes allow schools to take the already squeezed adjuncts and grad students and pay them even less to help grade/moderate the online variants. Meanwhile eating away at the consensus that education is a series of seminars amongst the wise.

[redwood]

It's very easy for me to imagine a massive societal shift from traditional ivory tower education toward self-learning and online education and a skills-focused employment race. Of course there will always be ivory towers that provide elites with a way of distinguishing themselves for a very small, reserved portion of the population. Harvard et al's degrees will always set you apart... but for the bulk of the middle class there will need to be something else.

The way everyone today feels they need a masters reminds me of the way everyone used to say you need a credit card to get a good credit score. It's called drinking the kool-aid.

[TimGebhardt]

Or you "need" to buy a house now (circa 2006) before all the good ones are bought up and you're out of the housing market boom.

Man, if I could go back in time...

[carsongross]

People also had a hard time imagining a world with a huge crash in housing.