4 ms·

Is money really the issue? In many places, everybody gets a free education, and even university is free. So everybody could simply become a doctor or a lawyer a

Is money really the issue? In many places, everybody gets a free education, and even university is free. So everybody could simply become a doctor or a lawyer and expect an income above the poverty line - at least if money was the only issue.

bobthepanda 5y ago
That would assume the free education people get is equivalent across income levels, which is a hard thing to do in the best of circumstances. Even independent of educational quality, there is a world of difference between a school's ability to teach a well fed, comfortable child and a child whose only meal of the day is the free school lunch. Similarly, a rich child can afford to do unpaid internships on summer break, whereas a poor one may be working minimum wage jobs to generate an income instead. This is before you get into the weeds of things like teachers preferring to be placed into good schools because it makes their jobs easier, that well-connected schools can raise money outside of the public system, etc. People say they want educational equality, but this is almost never at the perceived cost to their own children.
- thjkgfgrrioppo 5y ago
  In my country the differences beteren universities (and schools) are not very big. It seems very unlikely that more money could buy a significantly better education. Nobody is starving, either.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  The idea that education (in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition) is zero sum is wrong. Educational equality starts with parents giving a shit about their kids' education. Why do you think Asians overachieve on every benchmark we have? Could it possibly be because there are cultural factors that motivate parents to care very strongly about their childrens' education? America spends the most in the world per capita on our schools and has terrible results. It's clear that tossing more money into a black hole won't fix the problem. Anecdotally, in high school I never heard any white/Latino/black friend joke about getting yelled at if they got a B. > unpaid internships You might want to take a look at levels.fyi. Internship salaries are higher than a lot of full time jobs nowadays.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    ...in technology. Unless we're seriously going to force everyone into tech jobs, we need an economic model that works for broadly most industries. As an example, nearly all starting first-year internships in law are unpaid. People who don't take those will be competing with those that did do them the next year.
    - b9a2cab5 5y ago
      We don't need more art historians and event coordinators and other roles for which internships are unpaid. For every degree that actually results in positive return on investment (so, not most liberal arts degrees), internships are paid. Economics, biology, chemistry, business, statistics, law, these are all degrees that mostly have paid internships. About the only place where you can reasonably say "we need more of these people" but is unpaid is legislative offices. And I agree, government should hire fewer but more highly paid and higher performing staff.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Tech jobs are about capturing externally-created value with network structures... if everyone had a tech job then where's the external value come from?
  - cm2012 5y ago
    Asians in Asia don't outperform the US overall. We just get the most driven and smart Asians as immigrants.
    - b9a2cab5 5y ago
      Incorrect. If you take a look at the 2018 PISA rankings [1] the top is dominated by Asian and East European countries. Is it a coincidence that ex-Soviet countries which had a strong state focus on STEM are top ranked? Or that the top 10 contains basically every 1st world Asian country (Japan, South Korea, and the Asian city states)? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#PISA_2018_ranking_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...
DarylZero 5y ago
If everyone could become a doctor then doctors would simply be poor. Of course, the number of new doctors per year is capped, so not everyone can be a doctor.
- diordiderot 5y ago
  I believe the commenter was using sarcasm.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Education hasn't been free for a long time. You have to spend money on private tutors, books and laptops if you want your children to compete in the rat race.
tjpnz 5y ago
Having money buys your kid diagnosis and treatment for their learning disability, and later on private tutoring at university. Even if they're reasonably bright the spoilt brat with middling intelligence will have significant advantages.

bobthepanda 5y ago

That would assume the free education people get is equivalent across income levels, which is a hard thing to do in the best of circumstances. Even independent of educational quality, there is a world of difference between a school's ability to teach a well fed, comfortable child and a child whose only meal of the day is the free school lunch. Similarly, a rich child can afford to do unpaid internships on summer break, whereas a poor one may be working minimum wage jobs to generate an income instead. This is before you get into the weeds of things like teachers preferring to be placed into good schools because it makes their jobs easier, that well-connected schools can raise money outside of the public system, etc. People say they want educational equality, but this is almost never at the perceived cost to their own children.

thjkgfgrrioppo 5y ago
In my country the differences beteren universities (and schools) are not very big. It seems very unlikely that more money could buy a significantly better education. Nobody is starving, either.
b9a2cab5 5y ago
The idea that education (in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition) is zero sum is wrong. Educational equality starts with parents giving a shit about their kids' education. Why do you think Asians overachieve on every benchmark we have? Could it possibly be because there are cultural factors that motivate parents to care very strongly about their childrens' education? America spends the most in the world per capita on our schools and has terrible results. It's clear that tossing more money into a black hole won't fix the problem. Anecdotally, in high school I never heard any white/Latino/black friend joke about getting yelled at if they got a B. > unpaid internships You might want to take a look at levels.fyi. Internship salaries are higher than a lot of full time jobs nowadays.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  ...in technology. Unless we're seriously going to force everyone into tech jobs, we need an economic model that works for broadly most industries. As an example, nearly all starting first-year internships in law are unpaid. People who don't take those will be competing with those that did do them the next year.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    We don't need more art historians and event coordinators and other roles for which internships are unpaid. For every degree that actually results in positive return on investment (so, not most liberal arts degrees), internships are paid. Economics, biology, chemistry, business, statistics, law, these are all degrees that mostly have paid internships. About the only place where you can reasonably say "we need more of these people" but is unpaid is legislative offices. And I agree, government should hire fewer but more highly paid and higher performing staff.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Tech jobs are about capturing externally-created value with network structures... if everyone had a tech job then where's the external value come from?
- cm2012 5y ago
  Asians in Asia don't outperform the US overall. We just get the most driven and smart Asians as immigrants.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    Incorrect. If you take a look at the 2018 PISA rankings [1] the top is dominated by Asian and East European countries. Is it a coincidence that ex-Soviet countries which had a strong state focus on STEM are top ranked? Or that the top 10 contains basically every 1st world Asian country (Japan, South Korea, and the Asian city states)? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#PISA_2018_ranking_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...

DarylZero 5y ago

If everyone could become a doctor then doctors would simply be poor. Of course, the number of new doctors per year is capped, so not everyone can be a doctor.

diordiderot 5y ago
I believe the commenter was using sarcasm.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Education hasn't been free for a long time. You have to spend money on private tutors, books and laptops if you want your children to compete in the rat race.

tjpnz 5y ago

Having money buys your kid diagnosis and treatment for their learning disability, and later on private tutoring at university. Even if they're reasonably bright the spoilt brat with middling intelligence will have significant advantages.