HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The 4-Year Degree Is Largely Mythical. “The report suggests some obvious reasons for this trend—students taking too light a course load during each semester, for example. Others are administrative failures on the part of the universities, like restrictions on students’ ability to sign up for classes, or on credits that can be transferred from school to school. One reason the report gives is particularly striking: large course catalogs overwhelm students who lack guidance from adults who can help them choose a course of study. These are all particular failures on the part of colleges that can and should be fixed, but the story is notable because it shows how widely higher ed actually diverges from the ambient beliefs about it (for instance, that it lasts four years). To make higher ed work better for everyone, time spent in educational institutions should trend shorter rather than longer, so the fact that the baseline expectation is now six years for a B.A. is not encouraging.”