The Oregonian's recent articles on the escalating cost of undergraduate education and the incredible debt carried by most graduating seniors did not address the fundamental issue underlying this problem: Even at these costs, the quality of education being delivered to a majority of students is closer to remedial high school rather than college.

Undergraduate education in America is an enormous business, with 9 million undergraduates spending $20,000 to $50,000 each year on tuition, books, lodging, meals and entertainment. Make no mistake about it: Administrators, academics, publishers, bankers and the sports industry all have a vested interest in increasing the undergraduate population.

Our colleges and universities compete to attract students through amenities such as fine facilities, strong sports programs, spas and easy course options.

A standing joke among faculty members is an adaptation of a communist adage: "We pretend to teach and they pretend to learn." We all know that there are so-called "graduates" who can barely read or write and couldn't pick out the United States on a map.

A vibrant and rigorous higher education system is, of course, a vital part of our national infrastructure. Indeed, we have many fine institutions and many students who are working hard to extract as much as they can from the schools they are attending. The problem is that about half of our student population shouldn't be there for academic or motivational reasons.

Why are they there, then? Because the higher education business, in its zeal to keep expanding, has convinced us that everyone "has to" go to college regardless of what they get out of it. We have managed to raise the bar for getting any kind of menial job to a bachelor's degree and are well on the way to requiring a master's to qualify for a barista position.

The sad thing is that the kids who are there for the wrong reasons are not only carrying a huge debt after their four or five wasted years, but they have also given up several years of productive output, on-the-job learning and income.

Most businesses have to train graduates from scratch anyway because most don't come to them with useful skills; they use the bachelor's degree as a simple tool for winnowing applicants, because those with a bachelor's may be more trainable than those without. If a bachelor's degree really meant something and there was a significant nonbachelor's pool of talented people, job requirements would become more realistic.

The whining of the higher education business execs for more money from their students and state governments certainly would subside if the undergraduate population suddenly dropped by half and parents demanded that colleges actually deliver a rigorous education for the money invested.

It's time to make the "higher" in higher education mean something.

Ken Moyle lives in Beaverton.