By: Mike DiMatteo
I can remember when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers first entered the NFL in 1976. Along with the Seattle Seahawks, they were expansion teams. Each existing team had to put players on waivers, but of course, they only made their lesser players available. The expansion teams were left to cobble together rosters from castoffs. Even the established franchises suffered—losing good backups and stretching their depth thin. The result was predictable: watered-down talent across the league.
For years, the Buccaneers floundered, setting a league record for losses despite being led by John McKay, one of the most respected coaches of his generation. Expansion dilutes talent. It’s like stretching pizza dough—thin it too far and holes appear. Business works the same way. Grow too fast, overextend, and collapse is inevitable.
Higher education in America is no different.
Today, the United States has 5,819 colleges and universities. Yet between 2012 and 2020, enrollment dropped by two million students.[1] That imbalance has forced institutions to chase tuition dollars by offering degrees with little or no return on investment (ROI). Rather than strengthen academic cores, many schools have created niche programs that look attractive in a brochure but leave graduates saddled with debt and limited job prospects.[2]
The expansion hasn’t only diluted the number of institutions; it has also diluted the faculty. Seventy-one percent of faculty are now contingent—adjuncts, lecturers, or part-timers without tenure protections. In 1987, 53% of faculty were tenured; today, it’s just 32%.[3] Adding to the problem, 20–30% of introductory courses are taught by teaching assistants—graduate students working toward their Ph.D.s, not trained educators.[4] Families paying rising tuition costs expect seasoned professors. Instead, students often get instructors still learning their own craft. The result is predictable: a sub-par education.
The financial stakes are sobering. Student debt now tops $1.8 trillion, with an average balance of $32,000 per borrower.[5] Meanwhile, tuition has risen four times faster than inflation since the 1980s, while real graduate earnings have stagnated.[6] ROI data confirms what many families sense: nearly 23% of bachelor’s programs and 43% of associate’s programs leave students worse off financially than if they had never enrolled.[7]
A few examples:
– Harvard University, Women’s/Ethnic/Gender Studies (B.A.) → ROI: -$43,000
– University of Pennsylvania, Film & Photographic Arts (B.A.) → ROI: -$140,000
– New York University, Music (B.A.) → ROI: -$500,000
– Alabama A&M, City/Urban Planning (M.A.) → ROI: -$73,526[8]
Low-ROI degrees are not confined to obscure programs. Fields such as Education, Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Social Work, Anthropology, and Early Childhood Education routinely deliver negative long-term returns, often -$40,000 or worse over time.[9] These programs are cheap for universities to run and fill tuition coffers—but too often they serve the institution more than the student.
The cycle is reinforced by employers who use “a degree” as a baseline filter, regardless of whether the credential is necessary. High schools push students toward college as the default path, the high school to college pipeline, even though many would thrive in trades or by entering the workforce directly. Universities happily oblige, filling classrooms but diluting standards in the process.
Yes, on average, college graduates earn more than those without a degree. But that generalization hides the reality: if your degree has a negative ROI, you’re worse off. Passion may drive a student into a program, but if that passion is funneled into a field that leads to debt and underemployment, it becomes a trap rather than a stepping stone.
The mandate of universities should not be to justify tuition hikes with “filler” degrees. The proliferation of colleges has thinned the teaching pool, flooded the system with low-value programs, and left students footing the bill. Families must demand better: students must choose prudently, weighing financial return alongside personal interest, and parents must push universities to raise standards, not simply expand course catalogs. Otherwise, higher education will remain the academic equivalent of an expansion team—overextended, underperforming, and costly to everyone involved.
Works Cited
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Digest of Education Statistics. 2023–24. https://nces.ed.gov.
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Trends in Higher Education: Understanding Policy and Outcomes. 2023. https://www.ncsl.org/education/trends-in-higher-education-understanding-policy-and-outcomes.
American Association of University Professors. Data Snapshot: Tenure and Contingency in U.S. Higher Education. Spring 2023. https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/spring-2023/data-snapshot-tenure-and-contingency-us-higher-education.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Impacts of 2020 on Advancement of Contingent Faculty. 2020. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26405/6_The_Impacts_of_2020_on_Advancement_of_Contingent_Faculty-Culver_Kezar.pdf.
Education Data Initiative. Student Loan Debt Statistics. 2025. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics.
U.S. Social Security Administration. Earnings by Educational Attainment. 2020. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education-earnings.html.
Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP). Does College Pay Off? A Comprehensive Return on Investment Analysis. 2024. https://freopp.org/whitepapers/does-college-pay-off-a-comprehensive-return-on-investment-analysis.
Education Data Initiative. College Degree ROI. December 2024. https://educationdata.org/college-degree-roi.
Carnevale, Anthony P., Ban Cheah, and Andrew R. Hanson. The Economic Value of College Majors. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2015. https://cew.georgetown.edu/report/valueofcollegemajors.
