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There are two really big problems with this outlook. First if everyone achieves a high level education, the competition for high skilled jobs also goes up, maki

There are two really big problems with this outlook. First if everyone achieves a high level education, the competition for high skilled jobs also goes up, making the higher education mean less and requiring further education to beat the crowd. This is something millennials are experiencing right now. Second, if employers take more risk and hire more people from underprivileged backgrounds, it just means that someone from a privileged background missed out on the job and just shifts the resentment from one group to the other. It doesn't really solve the fundamental problem. Working hard will move you forward. How forward is hard to determine, and it varies. The reality is that some people in their lifetime won't achieve success but they lay the foundation for their children too...ex his mothers struggle to get from Africa to the UK laid the foundation for him to achieve his success. Their is little chance that he will become say the Prime Minister, but his children may...thanks to their dad being able to provide them with a privileged life.

sp332 9y ago
The job market isn't static like that. If there are lots of highly educated people, there will be new jobs created to take advantage of their skills. There might be more competition or there might not be, and it's definitely not a linear correlation.
- phil21 9y ago
  The more I think on this topic, the more I think this statement is incorrect. Or rather it's correct, but irrelevantly so. Sure new markets will be created if your worker pool is made up highly motivated and college educated individuals. But it won't matter for that first generation - economies simply don't shift that quickly. It's not a linear correlation, but it's a lot more linear than economic theorists would lead you to believe. In human working-age timescales, it may as well be linear.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  There is a lot more to entrepreneurship than a high education level. Young people are more educated than ever, yet small business creation is lower than ever[1]. A business requires startup capital, which is tough to gain when you must start your career in $40k-$100k in debt. The salaries of recent grads have been lower, too. Cost of living, especially in housing and medical expenses, is going up every year. With dwindling social stability and a hobbled ability to save, the only ones who can safely risk starting a business nowadays are those who already have capital. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/02/12/the-decline-of-american-entrepreneurship-in-five-charts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    Your first point depends on your definition of "educated." I'm unconvinced that young people are more educated than ever, because education includes broad critical/creative thinking. It's not cookbook mimicry bounded by a narrow set of choices in a common problem space. It's the difference between "I made a new web framework" and Vannevar Bush or John von Neumann. As for cost of debt - yes, it gets much harder to innovate when access to free capital is rationed. Rationing and hoarding capital is actually one of the dumbest things a capitalist culture can do. "Hard work" won't fix this.
- user5994461 9y ago
  >>> If there are lots of highly educated people, there will be new jobs created to take advantage of their skills. No. Just no. That is utterly wrong. The job market goes by itself. It has little correlation with education prospects (that takes 5 years for any change to make new student anyway).
Mediterraneo10 9y ago
As birth rates plummet across much of the developed world, can people really still be convinced to take on hardship just because things might supposedly be easier for their children (that they don't even have, or have but don't maintain a close relationship with)? Telling people today that their sacrifices are worth it or that the obstacles they face are not so bad, because things will be better for their kids, is cold comfort.

sp332 9y ago

The job market isn't static like that. If there are lots of highly educated people, there will be new jobs created to take advantage of their skills. There might be more competition or there might not be, and it's definitely not a linear correlation.

phil21 9y ago
The more I think on this topic, the more I think this statement is incorrect. Or rather it's correct, but irrelevantly so. Sure new markets will be created if your worker pool is made up highly motivated and college educated individuals. But it won't matter for that first generation - economies simply don't shift that quickly. It's not a linear correlation, but it's a lot more linear than economic theorists would lead you to believe. In human working-age timescales, it may as well be linear.
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
There is a lot more to entrepreneurship than a high education level. Young people are more educated than ever, yet small business creation is lower than ever[1]. A business requires startup capital, which is tough to gain when you must start your career in $40k-$100k in debt. The salaries of recent grads have been lower, too. Cost of living, especially in housing and medical expenses, is going up every year. With dwindling social stability and a hobbled ability to save, the only ones who can safely risk starting a business nowadays are those who already have capital. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/02/12/the-decline-of-american-entrepreneurship-in-five-charts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  Your first point depends on your definition of "educated." I'm unconvinced that young people are more educated than ever, because education includes broad critical/creative thinking. It's not cookbook mimicry bounded by a narrow set of choices in a common problem space. It's the difference between "I made a new web framework" and Vannevar Bush or John von Neumann. As for cost of debt - yes, it gets much harder to innovate when access to free capital is rationed. Rationing and hoarding capital is actually one of the dumbest things a capitalist culture can do. "Hard work" won't fix this.
user5994461 9y ago
>>> If there are lots of highly educated people, there will be new jobs created to take advantage of their skills. No. Just no. That is utterly wrong. The job market goes by itself. It has little correlation with education prospects (that takes 5 years for any change to make new student anyway).

Mediterraneo10 9y ago

As birth rates plummet across much of the developed world, can people really still be convinced to take on hardship just because things might supposedly be easier for their children (that they don't even have, or have but don't maintain a close relationship with)? Telling people today that their sacrifices are worth it or that the obstacles they face are not so bad, because things will be better for their kids, is cold comfort.