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Well the kind of obvious explanation for that is that success in life is probably strongly determined by intelligence. So when ~10% of the population went to co

Well the kind of obvious explanation for that is that success in life is probably strongly determined by intelligence. So when ~10% of the population went to college there was a high chance that those were also approximately the 10% smartest of a generation. If lots more people go to college now, that just means that it ceases to be a good predictor of success.

tudelo 7y ago
I mean, you could probably just sort further via what field they pursue...
petermcneeley 7y ago
When you see people with stem Masters and PhDs working as highschool teachers you begin to wonder if the problem is intelligence. Or when people with PhDs in bio/Chem are working as programmers you wonder if it's a question of talent.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  The problem is that we decided to inflate education prices while deflating labor prices. You can't do both at the same time and get sane results, because each individual needs to make their labor price correspond to their (former) education price. So you wind up with Biochem PhDs working as programmers. Neither biochemistry nor programming is for stupid people, per se, but programming hires loads of people at salaries actually commensurate with the monetized value of the time-investment spent getting a doctorate, while actual biochemistry, the field of the doctorate, has emphasized cheap labor.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  A big chunk of my PhD cohort subsequently left academia, but it certainly wasn’t based on “talent” or intelligence. It was pretty much random and not at all who I would have expected from our first year.
- injb 7y ago
  But is that because they can't find a better job, or they just can't find a better job in academia? I find it hard to believe that someone with a Masters or PHD in stem could not find a high paying job in the tech industry. (disclosure: I didn't read the article; I'm just curious about these anecdotes I keep hearing about PHDs)
travisoneill1 7y ago
This has been proven. The Department of Education conducted the National Assessment of Adult Literacy in 1992 and 2003. The average score was almost identical, but the scores for college graduates plummeted. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_dem_edu.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_dem_edu.asp
CelestialTeapot 7y ago
It used to mostly be the children of parents who had the financial wherewithal to pay for it went to college. Looking at an article from InsideHigherEd.com [1], you'd think the "10% smartest of a generation" would actually be smarter than they were. At least 60% of college graduates didn't have prose proficiency and document proficiency in 1992! The breakdown for college grads, 1992 vs. 2003: Prose literacy proficiency dropped from 40% to 31% Document literacy proficiency dropped from 37% to 25% (quantitative proficiency not shown) 1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/graduated-not-literate https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/graduated-not...

tudelo 7y ago

I mean, you could probably just sort further via what field they pursue...

petermcneeley 7y ago

When you see people with stem Masters and PhDs working as highschool teachers you begin to wonder if the problem is intelligence. Or when people with PhDs in bio/Chem are working as programmers you wonder if it's a question of talent.

eli_gottlieb 7y ago
The problem is that we decided to inflate education prices while deflating labor prices. You can't do both at the same time and get sane results, because each individual needs to make their labor price correspond to their (former) education price. So you wind up with Biochem PhDs working as programmers. Neither biochemistry nor programming is for stupid people, per se, but programming hires loads of people at salaries actually commensurate with the monetized value of the time-investment spent getting a doctorate, while actual biochemistry, the field of the doctorate, has emphasized cheap labor.
mattkrause 7y ago
A big chunk of my PhD cohort subsequently left academia, but it certainly wasn’t based on “talent” or intelligence. It was pretty much random and not at all who I would have expected from our first year.
injb 7y ago
But is that because they can't find a better job, or they just can't find a better job in academia? I find it hard to believe that someone with a Masters or PHD in stem could not find a high paying job in the tech industry. (disclosure: I didn't read the article; I'm just curious about these anecdotes I keep hearing about PHDs)

travisoneill1 7y ago

This has been proven. The Department of Education conducted the National Assessment of Adult Literacy in 1992 and 2003. The average score was almost identical, but the scores for college graduates plummeted. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_dem_edu.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_dem_edu.asp

CelestialTeapot 7y ago

It used to mostly be the children of parents who had the financial wherewithal to pay for it went to college. Looking at an article from InsideHigherEd.com [1], you'd think the "10% smartest of a generation" would actually be smarter than they were. At least 60% of college graduates didn't have prose proficiency and document proficiency in 1992! The breakdown for college grads, 1992 vs. 2003: Prose literacy proficiency dropped from 40% to 31% Document literacy proficiency dropped from 37% to 25% (quantitative proficiency not shown) 1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/graduated-not-literate https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/graduated-not...