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Also, government should not subsidize zero-sum games. More people go to college and suddenly a college degree is not a comparative advantage anymore, it becomes

Also, government should not subsidize zero-sum games. More people go to college and suddenly a college degree is not a comparative advantage anymore, it becomes a baseline. Nobody benefits. http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies...

brianwawok 10y ago
An educated population is NOT a zero sum game. The top thing the government can do for it's people is to keep them alive. (Free from invasion, murder, etc). The second thing the government can do for it's people is to keep them healthy. Access to health care, etc. etc. More of an offshoot of above, but for things deeper than alive. The third thing the government can do for it's people is to educate them. Not so that they can get "better jobs", but so they can be educated. The people around you vote just as much as you do. They decide the future of the country just as much as you do. Would you rather someone who never ever set foot in school helped elect your local government, or someone who has a PhD from a good college? Kind of a hierarchy of needs.. education doesn't matter if you aren't safe.. but once you are safe, it seems very important. Not at ALL a 0 sum game. You don't educate to give people better jobs, but to enable them to think critically. Which is why 4 year colleges do a lot more for the world than coding boot camps or trade schools.
- saint_fiasco 10y ago
  The US has one of the best (albeit expensive) college education in the world. The primary/middle/high-school system is seriously under-performing, though. Couldn't those be improved instead? It would benefit everyone, not just the upper-middle classes that can afford college.
  - beefok 10y ago
    How do you increase the performance of the primary/middle/high-school system? To me, that means creating better and more educated teachers that can generate more 'performant' students!
    - douche 10y ago
      You've got to pay those teachers a competitive wage, if you want to get better quality out of them. Teaching is already kind of a shitty deal, considering you need a four-year degree, plus specialty teacher training, and then continuing education to maintain your certificate, and then they pay you peanuts.
      - cmdrfred 10y ago
        Teachers make over the median wage on average, and work less hours per year as well. How much do we have to pay them in order to encourage them to do their jobs in your opinion? "The BLS reports that elementary teachers in the U.S. receive an average annual salary of $55,270. Many teachers, including those in New York City, receive their pay at set intervals throughout the course of the year. In other areas, teachers only receive pay when school is in session. The BLS does not gather data relating to hourly wages due to the manner in which most elementary teachers are paid. However, someone working a typical 40-hour work week would have to receive an hourly rate of $26.57 to earn as much as the average elementary teacher over the course of a year." http://work.chron.com/hourly-wages-teachers-2044.html http://work.chron.com/hourly-wages-teachers-2044.html
        douche 10y ago
        That seems pretty high. My mother with 27 years of seniority and a master's degree only makes about that much, and she is the highest-paid teacher in her school district. Starting salary in Maine is something like 30, 32k. Technically, teachers do only work about 3/4 as many days as the rest of us that work full time, but it's not exactly easy to pick up another real job for those two and a half months in the summer. You're not going to get people that have better options to gravitate towards teaching at those kind of rates. Especially for math and sciences, where you could start out making double or triple a teaching salary in an industry job.
        cmdrfred 10y ago
        >That seems pretty high. That article is quoting BLS statistics[0]. Where are your numbers? [0]http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kinder...
- 654869435418647 10y ago
  Conflating university degrees with the general educational of all citizens is a mistake. Universities are useful in attaining a particular type of education that is not suited to every highschool graduate. It's fairly clear once you've spent time on an American university campus that not everyone there "needs" to be there on the governments dime for the betterment of society.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    Why do you think they've reduced the level of knowledge of the average HS grad so that they have to go to college to get a decent job? Sure, you have to know more by age 20 now to get employed in a brain-based job, but education should be much easier and more efficient by now.
    - saint_fiasco 10y ago
      It is. We have MOOCs now, and ebooks, and online encyclopedias. But it's like those synthetic diamonds: It doesn't matter how much shinier, purer and cheaper they are, they will never replace "real" diamonds because the whole purpose of diamonds as a status symbol is that they are expensive.
bandrami 10y ago
Except a college degree isn't just signalling; you do actually learn things there.

brianwawok 10y ago

An educated population is NOT a zero sum game. The top thing the government can do for it's people is to keep them alive. (Free from invasion, murder, etc). The second thing the government can do for it's people is to keep them healthy. Access to health care, etc. etc. More of an offshoot of above, but for things deeper than alive. The third thing the government can do for it's people is to educate them. Not so that they can get "better jobs", but so they can be educated. The people around you vote just as much as you do. They decide the future of the country just as much as you do. Would you rather someone who never ever set foot in school helped elect your local government, or someone who has a PhD from a good college? Kind of a hierarchy of needs.. education doesn't matter if you aren't safe.. but once you are safe, it seems very important. Not at ALL a 0 sum game. You don't educate to give people better jobs, but to enable them to think critically. Which is why 4 year colleges do a lot more for the world than coding boot camps or trade schools.

saint_fiasco 10y ago
The US has one of the best (albeit expensive) college education in the world. The primary/middle/high-school system is seriously under-performing, though. Couldn't those be improved instead? It would benefit everyone, not just the upper-middle classes that can afford college.
- beefok 10y ago
  How do you increase the performance of the primary/middle/high-school system? To me, that means creating better and more educated teachers that can generate more 'performant' students!
  - douche 10y ago
    You've got to pay those teachers a competitive wage, if you want to get better quality out of them. Teaching is already kind of a shitty deal, considering you need a four-year degree, plus specialty teacher training, and then continuing education to maintain your certificate, and then they pay you peanuts.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      Teachers make over the median wage on average, and work less hours per year as well. How much do we have to pay them in order to encourage them to do their jobs in your opinion? "The BLS reports that elementary teachers in the U.S. receive an average annual salary of $55,270. Many teachers, including those in New York City, receive their pay at set intervals throughout the course of the year. In other areas, teachers only receive pay when school is in session. The BLS does not gather data relating to hourly wages due to the manner in which most elementary teachers are paid. However, someone working a typical 40-hour work week would have to receive an hourly rate of $26.57 to earn as much as the average elementary teacher over the course of a year." http://work.chron.com/hourly-wages-teachers-2044.html http://work.chron.com/hourly-wages-teachers-2044.html
      - douche 10y ago
        That seems pretty high. My mother with 27 years of seniority and a master's degree only makes about that much, and she is the highest-paid teacher in her school district. Starting salary in Maine is something like 30, 32k. Technically, teachers do only work about 3/4 as many days as the rest of us that work full time, but it's not exactly easy to pick up another real job for those two and a half months in the summer. You're not going to get people that have better options to gravitate towards teaching at those kind of rates. Especially for math and sciences, where you could start out making double or triple a teaching salary in an industry job.
        cmdrfred 10y ago
        >That seems pretty high. That article is quoting BLS statistics[0]. Where are your numbers? [0]http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kinder...
654869435418647 10y ago
Conflating university degrees with the general educational of all citizens is a mistake. Universities are useful in attaining a particular type of education that is not suited to every highschool graduate. It's fairly clear once you've spent time on an American university campus that not everyone there "needs" to be there on the governments dime for the betterment of society.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  Why do you think they've reduced the level of knowledge of the average HS grad so that they have to go to college to get a decent job? Sure, you have to know more by age 20 now to get employed in a brain-based job, but education should be much easier and more efficient by now.
  - saint_fiasco 10y ago
    It is. We have MOOCs now, and ebooks, and online encyclopedias. But it's like those synthetic diamonds: It doesn't matter how much shinier, purer and cheaper they are, they will never replace "real" diamonds because the whole purpose of diamonds as a status symbol is that they are expensive.

bandrami 10y ago

Except a college degree isn't just signalling; you do actually learn things there.