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Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills: WSJ (wsj.com)
Freshmen and seniors at about 200 colleges across the U.S. take a little-known test every year to measure how much better they get at learning to think. The results are discouraging. From a report: At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table (Editor's note: the link might be paywalled; alternative source), The Wall Street Journal found after reviewing the latest results from dozens of public colleges and universities that gave the exam between 2013 and 2016. At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years. Some of the biggest gains occur at smaller colleges where students are less accomplished at arrival but soak up a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum.
Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, wrote a neat book called Wealth of Nations, and he included an appendix where he explains why higher education does not follow the supply/demand model and can't reasonably be capitalist.
It boils down to, nobody shops around and buys a slightly lower quality education than they think they can afford; everybody buys the education with the strongest reputation that they can afford, and so there is no price feedback. The cost is related to reputation rather than value, so the units don't even translate directly to Capital.