The Taxpayer-Funded College Scam

For decades, parents have sacrificed and students have gone into debt to fund college degrees that lead nowhere. But the college scam may be up soon — not thanks to any moral awakening on the part of college administrators.

Instead, a tight job market is motivating more employers, including Google, IBM and some state governments, to scrap degree requirements and open up jobs to nondegree-holders. Elon Musk, who decided “college is basically for fun,” has for years evaluated applicants at Tesla based on skills, not a diploma.This trend should make college consumers skeptical about blindly forking over a fortune. For too long, Americans have been buying the idea that a degree in something, anything, is necessary to launch a career and join the middle class.All the while, colleges have been raising tuition mercilessly, pushing families to take on more debt to cover the hikes.Over a lifetime, getting a college degree pays off financially. That is, unles …