too much higher education?

This week, the Chronicle posted a forum which explored the question: Are Too Many Students Going to College? You can read the forum and accompanying reader comments here. You can also read NY Times' reader comments about the issue at the Choice Blog.

I have a seemingly endless collection of thoughts about all of this, but too many to sort out at this moment. Since so many of you reading this blog are my cc colleagues, I'm wondering what you think, particularly in terms of our continual budget cuts. Some specific questions I'd love to hear your thoughts about:

• How do we encourage continuation of the social contract that allows open access to education?
• Assuming the continued reality of budget cuts, do we strive for open enrollment with perhaps lesser (cheaper) forms of instructional delivery or do we impose caps to preserve quality of education?
• What do you think about the basic questions--do too many students go to college?

I'm going to write about this more later, once I get my thoughts sorted and coherent, but I look forward to hearing what you think.