THE BENEFITS OF COLLEGE: Brad DeLong has a post on the economics of college subsidies. His main point is an equity argument. "To tax the public to subsidize college-goers is a reverse Robin Hood enterprise: it takes from the (relatively) poor and gives to the (relatively) rich." To which I add an efficiency argument: the benefits of a college education are primarily private benefits. The marginal spillover benefits are low. The book titled Everything I Wanted to Know I Learned in Kindergarten makes a point its author may not have intended.