Higher Education: A Toxic Industry?

Too little scrutiny, and too many negative externalities?

So should we start regulating colleges and universities like tobacco companies or asbestos manufacturers?

I mean, higher education is looking more and more like a toxic industry.   So maybe it should be treated like one.

Generally speaking, we regulate industries to control “externalities,” by which we mean negative externalities. Externalities are costs (negative) or benefits (positive) that an organization imposes upon society.  Pretty much every industry produces varying amounts of both.  But the big concern is with the negative ones, for obvious reasons.  If a company makes profits, but sloughs some of its costs off on the surrounding community via pollution, that’s producing a negative externality.