Highered Intelligence gets in on the Reich hypothesis, and Michael thinks Reich forgot the non-pecuniary joys of education:

Robert Reich doesn't want you to go study law because we have too many lawyers, and they don't make that much anyway. But he only sees law school as a means to an end, not an end in itself. He only sees a doctorate in Philosophy as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I put this right above the tenure post (next item, below) as an interesting juxtaposition. Invisible Adjunct is viewing her education as a PhD historian as pointed to only one end. And Michael does recognize that if you spend six years getting a doctorate in philosophy, you pretty much are pointing towards one career track. But fulfillment, he says, comes from someplace else:

Our time is precious on this planet, and if you can spend six years doing nothing but making yourself into a smarter, more well-read person with a greater grasp of what two thousand years of human thought have to say about the human condition, then aren't you going to be better off? You can still take a lower paying job, one that's not commensurate with your education. You can still go work in Maine. True, you will have your college debt to worry about (or you won't, if you can afford it). But don't you think you'll have a different perspective on life than the person working with you to "go fer coffee?"

As they say here in blogspace, Read. The. Whole. Thing.