Yep, agreed.

I think a true college education containing all the components above is invaluable, for the right people. But not everyone going to college these days wants, or even expects, all of the above.

For example, many students see it as purely vocational and have no interest in breadth of exposure, awareness of history and culture, or social training. They just want a job and aren't interested in learning history, philosophy, science, or any kind of perspective on human society. They skip class and do the bare minimum to pass or get the grade they want, because they think that's what will land them a job, and they don't care at all about actual learning.

These people are probably wasting their time by going to college. Better to spend 4 years apprenticing in your industry of choice (though you should be careful and pick a good person to apprentice you. College at least theoretically offers some quality assurance on the part of the teacher, though I'm not so sure these days).

The other point, quality assurance of the student, is being eroded by certain college departments pushing political agendas over actual education. To me, that's the fault of the administrators and the professors, and not the students. But the end result is that only a few majors are providing any valuable skills, and the rest are mostly fluff.

And indeed, this is driven by fiat educational policies that disconnects funding from real returns.

Unfortunately one thing that still stands in the way of this is societal norms and prejudices. Non-college-educated people are still looked down upon by college-educated, both in the workplace and in society. The assortative matching in mating is just ridiculous... good luck getting a college-educated spouse if you yourself don't have a degree. I would send my kids to college if only to better their chances in the marriage market.

You left out the leisure value of college. I enjoyed college, for the most part. We don't talk about "returns to vacation", for instance, as being the primary way to assess the value of vacation. The main difference (and the reason this issue bugs me) is that young people are badly mislead about the financial value they should expect from college.

I also think it's pretty dubious what gains people actually tend to make in the items on your list at college. At best, college is a very expensive way to achieve those goals for most people.

Don't get me wrong, I feel like college benefited me on items 1, 3, 4, and 5, and I do recommend it for bright driven intellectually curious students. My teaching experience, however, leads me to believe it's a pretty small minority of students who should be there (in the sense that it's a good use of their time).

Like all bubbles, this one is due to widespread resource misallocations, so it would be better for it to burst and have those resources put towards more productive uses.