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Well, if you read the article, he addresses this. > What does this mean for the individual student? Would I advise an academically well-prepared 18-year-old to

Well, if you read the article, he addresses this. > What does this mean for the individual student? Would I advise an academically well-prepared 18-year-old to skip college because she won’t learn much of value? Absolutely not. Studying irrelevancies for the next four years will impress future employers and raise her income potential. If she tried to leap straight into her first white-collar job, insisting, “I have the right stuff to graduate, I just choose not to,” employers wouldn’t believe her. To unilaterally curtail your education is to relegate yourself to a lower-quality pool of workers. For the individual, college pays. > This does not mean, however, that higher education paves the way to general prosperity or social justice. When we look at countries around the world, a year of education appears to raise an individual’s income by 8 to 11 percent. By contrast, increasing education across a country’s population by an average of one year per person raises the national income by only 1 to 3 percent. In other words, education enriches individuals much more than it enriches nations. Essentially he makes the point that, indeed if he were a parent or would advise a parent or a student, he'd argue today, you absolutely should get a college degree. 'For the individual, college pays'. But that as a matter of national policy, we should realise there are zero-sum aspects to education, i.e. a person getting a degree competes better for attaining a job than a person without a degree, but that this doesn't translate into higher productivity / value. In other words, college should not be pursued as a national policy like say a Bernie Sanders often talks about. And that makes sense. I'm all for distributive justice, universal education is part of that equation. But if governments and companies receive plenty of data that the marginal return of education approaches zero, they should act accordingly and fight back in some manner. And that makes sense. For example, I can buy and eat meat while still saying that as a society, we shouldn't eat as much meat, and that we should double our taxes on them. Or sugar. Or cigs. Or SUVs. Or indeed, I can make use of a tax loophole while voting for a party that wants to end the loophole. Just because I'm self-interested in the short-term, doesn't mean that I don't want society to be shaped to make all of us better off in the long-term.

intopieces 9y ago
The conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premise; that is, the antidote to the zero-sum aspects of education are not necessarily less education. As well, the conclusion made by the author and most of his cohorts is from a purely economic standpoint. As if there were no intrinsic value to the enrichment of the human mind. As if the economic output of an individual were his sole measure of worth. You're essentially saying: "education is only worth investing in for some people." That's exactly what the author is saying: "Only academically well-prepared 18-year-olds ought to go to college." Ignoring that being 'academically well prepared' itself is influenced by many, many factors: race, income, test-taking aptitude, geographic location, age... Education is for everyone. Higher education -- community college -- is for everyone. It is worth investing in for everyone who wants it. That it doesn't bear out on the balance sheet of economics is a failure of economic measurement and the education system, not of education itself.
- IkmoIkmo 9y ago
  > The conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premise; that is, the antidote to the zero-sum aspects of education are not necessarily less education. That feels like a strawman. After all, he didn't say the antidote necessarily was less education, but also different education. i.e., not everyone should go to college could mean more people ought to go to vocational training. An argument he makes quite clearly: > The college-for-all mentality has fostered neglect of a realistic substitute: vocational education. It takes many guises—classroom training, apprenticeships and other types of on-the-job training, and straight-up work experience—but they have much in common. All vocational education teaches specific job skills, and all vocational education revolves around learning by doing, not learning by listening. Research, though a bit sparse, suggests that vocational education raises pay, reduces unemployment, and increases the rate of high-school completion. > You're essentially saying: "education is only worth investing in for some people." So, absolutely not. None of this was said. As for the argument about economics and the intrinsic value to enrich the human mind... Sure, in principle I and everyone else agrees (see K12 history classes). But you'd also agree, there are limits. For one, we don't expect people to go to super-college from 30 to 60, paying $10k a year either, to enrich the human mind. At some point education becomes a personal concern for everyone to pursue according to his/her wishes, interests, desires, rather than a societal concern. And secondly, it feels like this argument is completely detached from reality. Nobody cares if you spent $5k on a history education and enjoyed it, nobody argues against that. What people argue against is spending $50k on a history education you'll never use in the marketplace that either put you 50k in debt, which will burden you for an entire decade, or require other people (including those who didn't go to college) to pay for it. If you simply enjoy history, there's plenty of ways to study it for free. You and I probably do it all the time. If you want to study history to become an academic, teacher, writer etc, assuming the job exists, that's fine, there's a connection between the skills you learn and the skills your future job requires. And if that requires investments to overcome sociological differences, I'm all for that. (minority who studied sociology here, you get no complaints from me). But we obviously also see people getting taught skills that are completely useless. I've worked in a few faculties in a university. I'm not even necessarily talking about history majors or something. The most egregious example I think are business students, they get taught tons of stuff they never use. And don't tell me they study them for the sake of cultural enrichment, either, that's a joke, they'll tell you themselves. They study these things to get the piece of paper that gives them entrance to a job they didn't need to study for, which they've essentially bought with useless effort and debt. That's wrong, you know it, and the answer isn't 'more college education for everyone'. The author's suggestion that college-for-all neglects a substitute: vocational schooling, I think is really apt. That's different education, not less.

intopieces 9y ago

The conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premise; that is, the antidote to the zero-sum aspects of education are not necessarily less education. As well, the conclusion made by the author and most of his cohorts is from a purely economic standpoint. As if there were no intrinsic value to the enrichment of the human mind. As if the economic output of an individual were his sole measure of worth. You're essentially saying: "education is only worth investing in for some people." That's exactly what the author is saying: "Only academically well-prepared 18-year-olds ought to go to college." Ignoring that being 'academically well prepared' itself is influenced by many, many factors: race, income, test-taking aptitude, geographic location, age... Education is for everyone. Higher education -- community college -- is for everyone. It is worth investing in for everyone who wants it. That it doesn't bear out on the balance sheet of economics is a failure of economic measurement and the education system, not of education itself.

IkmoIkmo 9y ago
> The conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premise; that is, the antidote to the zero-sum aspects of education are not necessarily less education. That feels like a strawman. After all, he didn't say the antidote necessarily was less education, but also different education. i.e., not everyone should go to college could mean more people ought to go to vocational training. An argument he makes quite clearly: > The college-for-all mentality has fostered neglect of a realistic substitute: vocational education. It takes many guises—classroom training, apprenticeships and other types of on-the-job training, and straight-up work experience—but they have much in common. All vocational education teaches specific job skills, and all vocational education revolves around learning by doing, not learning by listening. Research, though a bit sparse, suggests that vocational education raises pay, reduces unemployment, and increases the rate of high-school completion. > You're essentially saying: "education is only worth investing in for some people." So, absolutely not. None of this was said. As for the argument about economics and the intrinsic value to enrich the human mind... Sure, in principle I and everyone else agrees (see K12 history classes). But you'd also agree, there are limits. For one, we don't expect people to go to super-college from 30 to 60, paying $10k a year either, to enrich the human mind. At some point education becomes a personal concern for everyone to pursue according to his/her wishes, interests, desires, rather than a societal concern. And secondly, it feels like this argument is completely detached from reality. Nobody cares if you spent $5k on a history education and enjoyed it, nobody argues against that. What people argue against is spending $50k on a history education you'll never use in the marketplace that either put you 50k in debt, which will burden you for an entire decade, or require other people (including those who didn't go to college) to pay for it. If you simply enjoy history, there's plenty of ways to study it for free. You and I probably do it all the time. If you want to study history to become an academic, teacher, writer etc, assuming the job exists, that's fine, there's a connection between the skills you learn and the skills your future job requires. And if that requires investments to overcome sociological differences, I'm all for that. (minority who studied sociology here, you get no complaints from me). But we obviously also see people getting taught skills that are completely useless. I've worked in a few faculties in a university. I'm not even necessarily talking about history majors or something. The most egregious example I think are business students, they get taught tons of stuff they never use. And don't tell me they study them for the sake of cultural enrichment, either, that's a joke, they'll tell you themselves. They study these things to get the piece of paper that gives them entrance to a job they didn't need to study for, which they've essentially bought with useless effort and debt. That's wrong, you know it, and the answer isn't 'more college education for everyone'. The author's suggestion that college-for-all neglects a substitute: vocational schooling, I think is really apt. That's different education, not less.