One of Sammler's chief issues (the issue on which we originally crossed paths, interestingly enough) is his staunch belief that we're wasting our time sending so many kids to college.

It looks like he may have found an unlikely ally in Hillary Clinton:

Clinton spoke at the Manchester School of Technology, which trains high school students for careers in the construction, automotive, graphic arts and other industries. The school highlighted one of the nine goals she outlined: increasing support for alternative schools and community colleges.

"We have sent a message to our young people that if you don't go to college ... that you're thought less of in America. We have to stop this," she said.

Well, it's not exactly the same argument, but variations on a similar theme. One that I agree with. I much prefer this route than the more typical policy of expanding college education to an ever-increasing pool of Americans.

While I'm not sure that there is much that can be done about the number of kids attending college, I do believe that there is a lot that states can do to help guide kids towards more economically useful courses of study. One thing that I would advocate is actually increasing college tuitions a great deal, but then offsetting it with scholarships in areas of study that are geared towards jobs.

Most majors I can think of fall into one of three categories:

Vocational - These are degrees that would leave people ready to enter the workforce in a specific line of work. Examples: Engineering, computers, education, medicine, finance, and so on.
Generalist - These are degrees that would leave graduates well-educated and ready to enter the workforce in a number of ways, sort of like a current business degree except more classical or scientific in nature. Examples: Physics, biology, philosophy, political science, language communication, and so on.
Academic - These are more narrow degrees that further the cause of intellectual inquiry but are not immediately appliable to the workforce: Regional history (American history, British history, Russian history, etc), literature, theology, women's studies, ethnic studies, and so on.

Most scholarships would be given to vocational studies. Economically speaking, it would be the default. Part of me doesn't like this because I would prefer that more people get generalist degrees, but for a generalist degree to be useful it requires a degree of intelligence and dedication missing from a lot of today's college students. So the default would be vocational and someone trying to get that sort of degree would be paying the least.

There would be fewer scholarships given for generalist degrees in order to try to select the best and brightest, those that will likely turn their philosophy degree into a law degree down the line or some other line of post-graduate study like medical ethics, social development study, and so on. Competition to get into these schools would not necessarily be horrendous, so those that might not make the grade but are dedicated enough to save for it (or more likely have rich parents) can do it if they want, but they will get little help from the state.

Also difficult to get a scholarship in would be academic study. Some would be more difficult than others. For instance, a degree in history may not be as expensive because they can be translated into teaching jobs (whether teaching jobs would be given to this group or the education vocational group is up for discussion), but others have limited opportunity so there would be limited scholarship slots available. As with generalist degrees, they can be got without the scholarship, but they would be discouraged.

As time progresses the the government would review which degrees are leaving people either jobless, outside their field of expertise, or in jobs for which they should be overqualified, and these degree programs would have their scholarships cut back. Then the government would look at shortages and apply more scholarships there. It would be important to use a time horizon long enough to account for natural fluctuations in the market. Just because environmental engineering jobs are down this year from last does not mean that they won't be up again next year.

There would naturally be a lot of young people that wouldn't fit into this arrangement. They'd be uninterested in a vocational major but not have the grades or money for one of the other options. I consider this a feature rather than a bug. They would be forced to make the tough decisions before all the money is spent. They would have a number of options:

1) Some people excel at the college level and don't do quite as well at the high school level. I would make scholarships dependent on more than just a high school transcript. If the GPA isn't good enough, I'd like to see some scholarship exams that would allow people to prove their dedication and intelligence by studying and learning independently. This would also give opportunities to people that goofed off until they hit the real world and then learned why school matters. There would be an opening here for people to "game the system", but that's more a matter of designing the right test as much as anything. The downside is that writing and administering these tests would not be inexpensive.

2) They can forego higher education and enter a career path that does not require any formal education past high school.

3) They can get jobs and save up money so that they don't need the state's help.

4) They can try to get a loan. This is not desirable and could become an arms race in itself, but as long as there are students in need of money for college there will be student loans. I would think that private loan companies would take into account the student's need for the money is closely related to poor academic performance and/or choosing an uneconomical major. Both of which would suggest that they are a potential default risk.

Part of me doesn't like this plan because it puts an awful lot of social power in the hands of the government. Degree programs would be encouraged or discouraged for political rather than market-based reasons. On the other hand, this is a form of government accountability. Not so much telling people what they can and cannot do but rather economically looking at how it allocates its limited resources.

Not that it really matters because this model is something of a pipe dream. The government hates telling middle class kids "No!" and in a way that's what this would probably come across as doing. There is also a significant faction among those whose opinion matters that almost all higher education is good education. Nonetheless, in my little perfect world, this is how I would likely go about it.