No doubt, the decision to go to college pays off, when taken on the individual level.<p>However, it&#x27;s less clear if the higher incomes are caused by the increased productivity afforded by education, or it&#x27;s merely a signaling effect: productive people go to college to signal to the employer that they are intelligent, hard working, and willing to commit to a career in the field by irreversibly burning years of their lives and future incomes on the hope of penetrating the respective professional field. It&#x27;s most likely, a combination of both.<p>What critics of the education bubble point out is not that a degree is necessary to earn a good income; but that the onerous costs of modern education have to little to do with the actual productivity gain and useful skills students earn in return.<p>In support of this view we can see how the MOOC revolution failed to produce significant effects on the labor market: it&#x27;s not that MOOC education is has low value (quite the contrary), it&#x27;s that is cheap enough that too many people can afford it, negating the signal (or &quot;sheepskin effect&quot; of an expensive degree).