College enrollment is down, report Richard Vedder and Christopher Denhart in the Wall Street Journal, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. The pay premium that bachelor’s degree holders earn over those without a four-year college degree is shrinking, too, while the price of college is going up and up. They write:

“This phenomenon leads to underemployment. A study I conducted with my colleague Jonathan Robe, the 2013 Center for College Affordability and Productivity report, found explosive growth in the number of college graduates taking relatively unskilled jobs. We now have more college graduates working in retail than soldiers in the U.S. Army, and more janitors with bachelor's degrees than chemists. In 1970, less than 1% of taxi drivers had college degrees. Four decades later, more than 15% do.

“This is only partly the result of the Great Recession and botched public policies that have failed to produce employment growth. It's also the result of an academic arms race in which universities have spent exorbitant sums on luxury dormitories, climbing walls, athletic subsidies and bureaucratic bloat. More significantly, it's the result of sending more high-school graduates to college than professional fields can accommodate.”

That last part is something I noticed during 31 years managing a manufacturing business in Wisconsin. You can make a good living with a technical degree or even a high school diploma – often very good, as I can attest from employing great people with those backgrounds – but too often, young people are told by well-meaning parents or guidance counselors that they have to get a four-year college degree or they’ll be a failure. This never has been true.