People have lamented the skyrocketing cost of college tuition for years, yet its rise continues unabated. No matter how outrageously expensive it gets, it just seems to keep rising, since our society’s credential mania means that people with less credentials than their competitors are assumed to be lazy and unambitious, even if the course of study leading to the required credentials teaches obsolete skills or useless information.

Around 1960, law school tuition was less than a tenth of what it is today, after adjusting for inflation: “Median annual tuition and fees at private law schools was $475 (range $50-$1050); adjusted for inflation, that’s $3,419 in 2011 dollars. The median for public law schools was $204 (range $50 – $692), or $1,550 in 2011 dollars. [For comparison, in 2009 the private law school median was $36,000; the public (resident) median was $16,546.]”