What’s missing far too often in today’s society is accountability. Few people fired from a job want to take accountability for the outcome. In politics, fewer want to be accountable but everyone is quick to point the finger. So, it should come as no surprise that free college education is being thrown around as an idea to ‘fix’ our broken college system.

Let me be clear…something is broken with our current system; however, the issue isn’t that it costs money.  The problem with college education today isn’t the cost; it’s the fact that nobody treats it like an investment.  Few people question or evaluate the expected return they receive or think about whether it’s the right investment for them to make.  We hold nobody accountable in the process with one exception; you have to pay off your student loans. I guess it should be no surprise we want to get rid of the last piece of accountability.

Most prospective students pick their university based on some pretty questionable criteria. There isn’t a lot of thought given to cost because student loans aren’t evaluated in the same way as your mortgage.  Everyone just assumes that a college education is worth whatever the investment (cost) turns out to be.  That is crazy! Banks don’t give you a mortgage for more than a house is worth.  In fact, banks don’t give you a mortgage for more than 80% of what it’s worth unless you pay for mortgage insurance. Why don’t we hold students and universities accountable to that same standard?

When you invest money in your 401k, buy a CD, buy a stock, or simply put money in savings you expect a return.  You ask questions about fees, interest rates, and risk.  Unfortunately, with one of the biggest investments in life, most people don’t ask the same questions.  We tell our kids that an education is an ‘investment’ but don’t actually use that lens to look at any related decision. We should require ALL publicly financed schools to provide the information necessary to make sound financial decisions.

You might ask…what would this look like. Imagine a kid considering a Computer Science degree from two different state universities. Let’s further imagine that the state required them both to share data that provides a real apple to apple comparison on both the cost of attending and the average income from graduates by program at 1, 3, or 5-year intervals post-graduation.  What if those statistics showed that one of the universities was 20% more expensive. That would be good info. However, what if the average graduate from that same university program made less money?  That is game changing information. If you were investing in your 401k would you pick the fund that had higher fees and lower performance? Not a chance…but we let our kids do it all the time in picking a school. They roll the dice and then we wonder why some people are strangled by the debt they acquire on a degree that wasn’t worth the cost.

Although this example was 100% fictitious; wouldn’t this information be valuable?  Wouldn’t it provide a significantly better way for students to decide how to invest in their education.  In this example, the added benefit is that it would drive colleges and universities to be accountable for the end results and have a vested interest in their student’s future earnings (and therefore the relevance of what they teach).  Making the education system more accountable would be a good thing!

The problem isn’t that education costs money; the problem is that we don’t treat it like an investment.  We effectively tell our children to blindly throw money towards it with the hope it works out. We don’t require or expect the same rigor that we would from true financial decisions.  We must do better at providing the information to prospective students, so they can make smart choices. We must also hold people accountable for the money that their education costs.  Making education free would undermine this investment and make people less accountable for their decisions.

The last thing we should do is make people less accountable about such a major decision in their life. What’s next, free home mortgages and car loans because it’s not fair to be strapped with a 30 year mortgage to buy a house or a loan for a car? Accountability would fix a lot of things in the world…including education!