As the costs of a college education skyrockets, and its worth plummets, one institution’s president says the system may have reached the “tipping point”.

Dr. Bill R. Path, President of the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, has this analysis in the Huffington Post:

With unemployment rates among college graduates rising, the well-regarded reputation of higher education in the United States teeters precariously between relevance and irrelevance.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, he describes how small incidents can become “moments of critical mass” that trigger widespread changes in public opinion. Perceptions like “relative worth” and “value in the marketplace” balance on a razor thin edge and the “tipping point” for public opinion of higher education is now upon us.

Last year more than 1.5 million new bachelor’s degree holders reported being either unemployed or underemployed — a national tragedy by any measure. These young people enrolled in college with the expectation that a degree would improve their lives. They certainly deserved better.

The general public watches helplessly as the cost of college tuition goes up every year. They have observed that more and more students are burdened with overwhelming school loan debt after college. They have seen unemployment lines growing longer across the country, and have noticed a rise in the number of recent college graduates waiting in these lines.

Out of loyalty and respect to its many revered institutions, the public has been very slow to hold higher education accountable in such affairs. But make no mistake — if substantive changes do not take place, the tipping point of public opinion will shift to be against higher education. Even now, many college graduates are recognizing they have been ill-prepared for today’s workforce, and they are beginning to ask, “Was my college education worth it?”

…The real problem for higher education lies within the traditionalist attitudes of many practitioners of higher education. In the same four to five years it has taken to produce the last set of college graduates, the U.S. economy has changed dramatically. The workforce has become far more competitive and employers much more selective about those whom they choose to hire. The public recognizes the world is changing, and they soon will demand higher education conform accordingly. In this new and troubled economy, colleges and universities cannot afford a “business-as-usual” operational approach to producing graduates.The tipping point for higher education is occurring. Public opinion dictates that it is time for change and compromise. There must be an acknowledgement that workforce skills training is within the role and responsibility of higher education. There must be a curricular balance struck and until a serious discussion takes place on college campuses around the country about applied learning, students will continue to suffer the consequences.