We do not get searching critiques, at least from economists, of the Australian university system, perhaps because the universities’ main role here is to bring in migrants for the Great Replacement, as I have argued in previous articles, so immigration has become a sacred cow of the anti-us system. Anyway, in the US context:
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/college-worth-it-one-study-says-maybe-not
“The unjustifiably high cost of college tuition in the US has dragged a whole generation into debt slavery. The average cost of a 4-year degree in the US is 3x higher than it was in 1990. Even tuition at in-state schools is climbing more quickly than incomes. As more people are forced to go into deep levels of debt to afford an education, more would-be students are being forced to take a hard look and reevaluate the ROI on a college degree. And as college tuition continues to outpace wage growth, for a growing number of people, the answer to 'is college worth it?' is going to be no. A reporter at Clever.com did some digging, and tabulated the ROI on different types of degrees: the bachelor's, master's and doctorate. Generally speaking, people with at least a bachelor's degree typically earn more money over their lifetime than those who never attended college, and it's also easier to get a job with a degree. But while Americans with a bachelor's degree might be on to something, those who earn a Master's and PHD-level degrees can't say the same. While nearly half the population has a bachelor's degree, only 13% of Americans have a master's or Phd-level degree. And according to Clever's analysis, many higher-level degrees may not be worth the time and money that students spend. In fact, the longer someone spends in school, the more the value of their degrees diminishes. Of course, ROI changes depending on the subject that an individual studies. Clever found that the best bachelor's degrees, unsurprisingly, tend to be in the STEM area: operations research, petroleum engineering, biological and physical sciences, biopsychology and gerontology.”