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This is where it falls apart, in my opinion: >Schmidt vehemently disagrees. “The economic return to higher education over a lifetime produces significant compo

This is where it falls apart, in my opinion: >Schmidt vehemently disagrees. “The economic return to higher education over a lifetime produces significant compound greater earnings.” It’s true, on average, economists find that college raises wages by about 15-30 percent. Despite the debt, it’s a wise investment for many students. >When asked about the difficulty in paying for college, Schmidt was adamant: “I appreciate it’s expensive and we need to fix that,” he said, but “figure out a way to do it.” College is expensive because we tell kids that it's going to be this huge windfall so people "figure out a way to do it." The problem is that it's a correlation/causation argument that's turned into an out-of-control feedback loop. College graduates traditionally earned far more because fields that needed a degree were higher-earning. College degrees are absolutely useful for some fields, and, in fact, I lean toward the argument against college being weaker for the more technical fields like typically get discussed here. But the real problem is that we've been telling kids that the only way to do anything with your life is by going to get a four year degree, and as a result we have more graduates and employers are starting to require four year degrees for jobs that have traditionally -- and should be -- vocational in nature. As a society, I think it's absolutely insane to expect these sorts of jobs to suddenly begin creating more value, and thus have higher compensation, simply because the person working it has more outside education. My stance is that we need to sort this out now before it gets any worse. We need to destigmatize vocational education. We need to realize that while some form of higher education is almost always a good thing, a four year degree is complete overkill for many.

srl 13y ago
> We need to destigmatize vocational education. This is a little off-topic, but back in high school, there was a vocational education program clearly considered to be somewhat remedial, tailored for those who had no hope of going to college or otherwise having much success. (Poor minorities, in other words.) Students would spend about half their time in this program, and half their time with the rest of the school. I was not in it, but I eventually learned that the brightest students in many of my classes were in this program. Stigmatized as it was, it worked, and quite well. In fact, it was probably better preparation for college than the regular-track courses (which were actually meant for people who might go to college). I don't pay much attention to education policy (one can't spend time on everything), so I'm not too sure what lessons ought to be drawn from this.
danielweber 13y ago
Schmidt really needs to segment out that "average" rise of 15 to 30 percent. 1. A few fields clearly need education, like medicine or law. Break those out separately. 2. Getting admitted and graduating from college is a strong signal of your employability. Even if college adds absolutely nothing to your skillset, it can increase your value. (Think of getting a perfect score on the SAT.) 3. Being able to put off earning for 4 years is partly a signal of your socioeconomic status. 4. It ignores the people who try to attend college and fail. They are left with debt, the opportunity cost of wages for their time in, and no degree to show to employers. This is separate from the fact that as we have pushed more people to get better degrees, employers have simply increased their job requirements, so you need a college degree to be an office manager. A credential race is a zero-sum game for society as a whole.

srl 13y ago

> We need to destigmatize vocational education. This is a little off-topic, but back in high school, there was a vocational education program clearly considered to be somewhat remedial, tailored for those who had no hope of going to college or otherwise having much success. (Poor minorities, in other words.) Students would spend about half their time in this program, and half their time with the rest of the school. I was not in it, but I eventually learned that the brightest students in many of my classes were in this program. Stigmatized as it was, it worked, and quite well. In fact, it was probably better preparation for college than the regular-track courses (which were actually meant for people who might go to college). I don't pay much attention to education policy (one can't spend time on everything), so I'm not too sure what lessons ought to be drawn from this.

danielweber 13y ago

Schmidt really needs to segment out that "average" rise of 15 to 30 percent. 1. A few fields clearly need education, like medicine or law. Break those out separately. 2. Getting admitted and graduating from college is a strong signal of your employability. Even if college adds absolutely nothing to your skillset, it can increase your value. (Think of getting a perfect score on the SAT.) 3. Being able to put off earning for 4 years is partly a signal of your socioeconomic status. 4. It ignores the people who try to attend college and fail. They are left with debt, the opportunity cost of wages for their time in, and no degree to show to employers. This is separate from the fact that as we have pushed more people to get better degrees, employers have simply increased their job requirements, so you need a college degree to be an office manager. A credential race is a zero-sum game for society as a whole.