Graduate degrees at elite universities are supposed to pay off. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation shows many don’t – leaving students deep in debt and raising a harder question about who’s really responsible.

The article points to Columbia and other elite universities as setting students up to fail. Columbia has at least a dozen master’s programs where most graduates can’t even begin to pay down the principal on their loans.

But these transactions have two willing parties. As much as universities can be criticized for charging these prices, students keep lining up to pay them. The deeper problem is a federal loan system that makes those decisions easy, and leaves taxpayers on the hook when they don’t work out.

Universities charge what students will pay

The Journal found that graduates of Columbia’s film master’s program left with a median debt of $181,000, while half were earning less than........

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