Tell Me Again, What's Expensive Exactly?

Funny the cosmic forces at work in the world. I was just reading something (this I think) that put me in mind of a quip used ad nauseum by former Harvard President Derek Bok. Bok is fond of saying, in reply to the criticism that Harvard's tuition is too high, "if you think education is expensive, try ignorance." I've always liked this quip, it's clever and captures the important concept that not all costs are monetary. That said, I think, as applied, the quip is false. Education is not necessarily expensive, but a Harvard degree certainly is, and the two are not the same. To wit, it is the credential that is expensive - the education need not be expensive, nor even need it be present (come to think of it, wasn't this the stance of the left vis-a-vis the Yale and Harvard Business School "educated" George W. Bush??). Nevertheless, the deeper falsehood lies in the fact that for society the cost of ignorance, as defined by a lack of a Harvard or similar education, looks downright manageable (tantalizing even) versus the ever mounting costs of a world run by our credentialled elites. Sure enough, Victor Davis Hanson supplies the timely and erudite exposition of this irony in "The New Sophists".

(HT: Powerline, with the excellently {for a bunch of old lawyers} culturally referenced title)