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"Many are realizing that education is a zero-sum credential game." Can this silly meme die already? Maybe it's understandable coming from an economist who val

by qntty 7y ago

"Many are realizing that education is a zero-sum credential game." Can this silly meme die already? Maybe it's understandable coming from an economist who values education for no other reason than it's economic effects, but it's strange coming from someone who clearly understands the value of personal development.

Nasrudith 7y ago
It is pretty strange even from an economist really - they of all people should be able to understand and articulate the difference between signaling value and direct utility value of a given good or service.
- koube 7y ago
  Economists have been debating the skills vs signaling value of education, especially since Bryan Caplan released his book The Case Against Education. If you want to get a smattering of opinion on the issue the book's reviews and dicussionsn would be a good starting point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#Reviews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#Rev... Bryan Caplan back and forth with Noah Smith on the book: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_1.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_1.h... Bryan Caplan back and forth with Bill Dickens on the book: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/08/education_and_s.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/08/education_and_s.htm...
- Gimpei 7y ago
  It's not a majority view among economists. Caplan is the only person I can think of who holds this view.
  - jdminhbg 7y ago
    Caplan is definitely not the only economist who holds this view. Most place the signaling/human capital split around 50/50: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/kauffman_econ_b.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/kauffman_econ_b.htm...
- jessaustin 7y ago
  If anyone could realize the tenuous value of education, it might be someone paying student loans for an economics degree...
lern_too_spel 7y ago
It seems correct to me. If I get a degree from MIT, somebody else can't. They have limited spots. He is promoting models of education for signaling employers that are not zero sum.
- icandoit 7y ago
  The slots needed be so limited. MIT has takes 3,000 students, Canadian universities take 30,000 students. (Remember Canada has 30 million people and US has 300 million.) - https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html - https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolment-by-university/ https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolmen...
gwern 7y ago
No one doubts the value of personal development, least of all the interviewee. But I'm not sure what that has to do with buying expensive formal education credentials.
- qntty 7y ago
  Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors. Education done well unquestionably produces economic benefit. The solution to commodified, low-quality education with questionable benefit is standing up for high-quality education. Pretending that education can't be anything more than it's worse forms is pure stupidity.
  - TrackerFF 7y ago
    "Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors." That may be the case for small colleges with high tutors-to-student ratios, but it's not the reality in many of the behemoth colleges / universities that feed warm bodies into jobs. I've seen first hand classes with hundreds and hundreds of students, where everything worked like an assembly line. Standardized tests with zero feedback, mentors were student TAs, a class or two above you, and they had been assigned to tens of students themselves - while correcting hundreds of homework / problem sets on the side. When you go to school like that, it can quickly feel like you're just another name on a list, with some avg. grade on the side. And it's only going to get worse with the ever-rising number of enrolled students.
codebolt 7y ago
My prediction is that whoever comes up with the next forward leap in AI will be someone who at minimum has a firm grasp on the various branches of undergraduate level maths. Naively tinkering with heuristic statistical ML methods like neural nets and hoping that higher level intelligence somehow magically pops out isn't the way forward. We need a more sophisticated approach.
- why-el 7y ago
  This is already being done in places such as the university of Arizona (Chomsky and his former students). The subject is narrower of course (computational linguistics and some neuroscience), but there are taking an approach that is more Galilean in nature, by designing experiments that reduce externalities rather that simply looking at massive amounts of data. I think that's what's going be the most useful, at least in areas that continue to be challenging for the current trends in AI, namely language.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Pragmatically speaking, the majority of machine learning researchers right now are not trying to make a leap in AI, they 're just trying to get in on the money while the current funding frenzy lasts. That is, for example, why it is possible to find people presumably seriously suggesting to: 3. Flashcard the Deep Learning Book (4-6m) 4. Flashcard ~100 papers in a niche (2m) As a method to "bootstrap yourself into deep learning research". I mean, it's clear to me that the language deployed in the article is ostensibly about teaching yourself to do machine learning research when what it's really discussing is how to get hired by one of the companies that are curently paying six-figure salaries for machine learning engineers etc. Or I'm just old and cynical. Wait, let me find my false teeth so I can chew that over.
- tprice7 7y ago
  This is logically independent from any claim about the value of formal education. I speak from experience that an undergraduate degree is not necessary in order to gain a firm grasp of undergraduate level math. Happy to elaborate if that is desired.
cossatot 7y ago
This statement is proportionally more common in fields where it's challenging to sort truth from bullshit. If it's easy to see that a piece of output (a paper, code library, machine learning model, whatever) or a job candidate is great, then the credentials behind it don't matter much. However if it's challenging to evaluate quality, then people will shift to looking at secondary signals such as credentials, price, etc. As to why a lot of economists go with the signaling model of education, well, it might just say something about their field and how much they got out of their own educations.

by qntty 7y ago

Nasrudith 7y ago

It is pretty strange even from an economist really - they of all people should be able to understand and articulate the difference between signaling value and direct utility value of a given good or service.

koube 7y ago
Economists have been debating the skills vs signaling value of education, especially since Bryan Caplan released his book The Case Against Education. If you want to get a smattering of opinion on the issue the book's reviews and dicussionsn would be a good starting point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#Reviews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#Rev... Bryan Caplan back and forth with Noah Smith on the book: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_1.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_1.h... Bryan Caplan back and forth with Bill Dickens on the book: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/08/education_and_s.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/08/education_and_s.htm...
Gimpei 7y ago
It's not a majority view among economists. Caplan is the only person I can think of who holds this view.
- jdminhbg 7y ago
  Caplan is definitely not the only economist who holds this view. Most place the signaling/human capital split around 50/50: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/kauffman_econ_b.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/kauffman_econ_b.htm...
jessaustin 7y ago
If anyone could realize the tenuous value of education, it might be someone paying student loans for an economics degree...

lern_too_spel 7y ago

It seems correct to me. If I get a degree from MIT, somebody else can't. They have limited spots. He is promoting models of education for signaling employers that are not zero sum.

icandoit 7y ago
The slots needed be so limited. MIT has takes 3,000 students, Canadian universities take 30,000 students. (Remember Canada has 30 million people and US has 300 million.) - https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html - https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolment-by-university/ https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolmen...

gwern 7y ago

No one doubts the value of personal development, least of all the interviewee. But I'm not sure what that has to do with buying expensive formal education credentials.

qntty 7y ago
Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors. Education done well unquestionably produces economic benefit. The solution to commodified, low-quality education with questionable benefit is standing up for high-quality education. Pretending that education can't be anything more than it's worse forms is pure stupidity.
- TrackerFF 7y ago
  "Education is more than credentials. It's the opportunity to be a part of a community that cares about ideas and make meaningful relationships with peers and mentors." That may be the case for small colleges with high tutors-to-student ratios, but it's not the reality in many of the behemoth colleges / universities that feed warm bodies into jobs. I've seen first hand classes with hundreds and hundreds of students, where everything worked like an assembly line. Standardized tests with zero feedback, mentors were student TAs, a class or two above you, and they had been assigned to tens of students themselves - while correcting hundreds of homework / problem sets on the side. When you go to school like that, it can quickly feel like you're just another name on a list, with some avg. grade on the side. And it's only going to get worse with the ever-rising number of enrolled students.

codebolt 7y ago

My prediction is that whoever comes up with the next forward leap in AI will be someone who at minimum has a firm grasp on the various branches of undergraduate level maths. Naively tinkering with heuristic statistical ML methods like neural nets and hoping that higher level intelligence somehow magically pops out isn't the way forward. We need a more sophisticated approach.

why-el 7y ago
This is already being done in places such as the university of Arizona (Chomsky and his former students). The subject is narrower of course (computational linguistics and some neuroscience), but there are taking an approach that is more Galilean in nature, by designing experiments that reduce externalities rather that simply looking at massive amounts of data. I think that's what's going be the most useful, at least in areas that continue to be challenging for the current trends in AI, namely language.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
Pragmatically speaking, the majority of machine learning researchers right now are not trying to make a leap in AI, they 're just trying to get in on the money while the current funding frenzy lasts. That is, for example, why it is possible to find people presumably seriously suggesting to: 3. Flashcard the Deep Learning Book (4-6m) 4. Flashcard ~100 papers in a niche (2m) As a method to "bootstrap yourself into deep learning research". I mean, it's clear to me that the language deployed in the article is ostensibly about teaching yourself to do machine learning research when what it's really discussing is how to get hired by one of the companies that are curently paying six-figure salaries for machine learning engineers etc. Or I'm just old and cynical. Wait, let me find my false teeth so I can chew that over.
tprice7 7y ago
This is logically independent from any claim about the value of formal education. I speak from experience that an undergraduate degree is not necessary in order to gain a firm grasp of undergraduate level math. Happy to elaborate if that is desired.

cossatot 7y ago

This statement is proportionally more common in fields where it's challenging to sort truth from bullshit. If it's easy to see that a piece of output (a paper, code library, machine learning model, whatever) or a job candidate is great, then the credentials behind it don't matter much. However if it's challenging to evaluate quality, then people will shift to looking at secondary signals such as credentials, price, etc. As to why a lot of economists go with the signaling model of education, well, it might just say something about their field and how much they got out of their own educations.