Everyone likes to feel good. Most people also like to feel they are doing some good in the world; however, even the best of intentions don’t always lead to the best outcomes. Subsidizing ethanol production comes to mind. So does bringing democracy to Iraq. In the same vein, the righteous urge that many people feel about increasing access to university has led to several problems in our post-secondary system.

One might be tempted to say, “But wait a second, Dan. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone read Plato or Malthus? Doesn’t access to higher-education lead to a nation full of enlightened citizens?”

First, let’s forget for a moment that universities do not always lead to enlightenment and can sometimes propagate dangerous ideas (Plato and Malthus come to mind). How much of the student population even care about higher learning? In the last Classics class I attended, I spotted one student playing Street Fighter on his laptop and at least three others doing some urgent Facebooking. Do we really want more of these types of students in university?

One of my first-year English professors seemed to share this sentiment. One day, he asked his class of more than 100 students if they would take a bachelor’s degree if he offered them one for free that day. By a show of hands, nearly half of the class would’ve taken it. His point: Many students don’t really care about the content of their degrees.

Motivation and a thirst for knowledge aside, there are two other problems with jamming our universities full of more students. Both of them involve the concept of inflation.

First, we have what is known as academic inflation. The concept can be summed up quickly with a question: What is a bachelor’s degree worth when everyone has one? Jobs that once required only a bachelor’s degree now require a master’s, a PhD, or even a post-doctoral degree due to the sheer number of undergrads these days. Not only does this mean that we now need closer to eight years of education to get the ‘good’ jobs, but it also means that more and more people with ‘good’ educations are underemployed or over-qualified for their jobs. This is why approximately 12 per cent of American federal mail-carriers hold college degrees.

A second problem with having too many students enrolling in university is the fact that this drives the cost of tuition through the roof. A recent set of statistics released by the Council of Ontario Universities indicates that, since 2000, there has been a 46.2 per cent increase in university applicants in Ontario. This represents an explosion in demand for university enrollment. And guess what, you don’t need a degree to know that when demand goes up, so does the price.

Of course, increased demand isn't the only reason that tuition has out-paced CPI inflation for the last few decades. Many students, arguably most, would have been priced out of the education market long ago if it weren’t for cheap money available in sub-prime student loans. Well-intentioned politicians, who are often under pressure from student unions and other interested groups, have helped plunge more students into debt while simultaneously allowing universities to inflate their fees without real market consequences. Universities have little reason to lower their fees because students can always find a government-backed loan to cover the cost. Basically, the politicians get votes, the universities get higher revenues, and the students get stuck with the bill.

If we really want universities to lower their fees, we should encourage more people to stop going to university. There are plenty of other options available. Learn one of the trades. Get a CUPE job and hold the city hostage for a few months. If applications to university were cut in half rather than steadily increasing each year, universities would be forced to make some serious decisions about cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and lowering tuition fees to attract more students. Who knows, maybe they would even dip into their endowments which are larger than the GDPs of some small countries.

A serious hit to demand for enrollment would do a lot more to lower tuitions than cheap slogans, “Drop Fees” posters, and sit-ins combined.