You folks might enjoy Gary Becker's seminal article on the acquisition of general vs firm-specific capital. He delineates the cases in which it is rational for the firm vs student to incur training costs, and in what proportion, be they general or firm-specific.
Broadly speaking, it could be rational for firms in some industries to have students finance a portion of firm-specific training if contracts are in place and enforceable, with the firm paying efficiency (above-market) wages. We see this a lot in science and business fields with tuition fees being reimbursed upon hire. In these cases, admission to prestigious programs or training pertinent to the firms acts as a signal of quality and actually increases the likelihood of "good" candidates being hired into the work of their choice.
My opinion is that employment litigation and unionization have driven a wedge between the risk appetites of employers and employees and upset the apple cart.
But back to Becker's paper! One of the major inputs into the decision process of investing in human capital is the relative cost to the student--in financial costs and effort-- the latter of which is low for our gifties.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...0&uid=4&uid=83&uid=63&sid=21101788582171
