4 ms·

True, but when you talk about the perspective of economics, it behooves you to talk about demand, I think. The broad based demand for a college education is ba

True, but when you talk about the perspective of economics, it behooves you to talk about demand, I think. The broad based demand for a college education is based on the irrational thinking that so many should have a college education in order to work, which is pretty much untrue. It's hard to argue that the quality of a college education has declined when its purpose has changed. So many folks just need a college degree to remain competitive, at least on paper, and not much else. I think this is a much more modern trend. Perhaps one could make the case that the low cost of a college education somehow spurred this irrational demand for it. So many people have set off to set themselves apart with a degree that now only substandard prospective workers don't have them.

dikaiosune 12y ago
Perhaps the demand is irrational, but the effects are very real: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm It would be nice if we could change the fundamental problems underlying that irrational demand (pre-college schooling which doesn't prepare students for work, a national obsession with white collar jobs, etc.). However, if I was staring down a big wealth gap and decided to propose a concrete policy shift to resolve some of it, I think that it's not a bad idea to get people moved from the 7-11% unemployment category to the 5.4% unemployment category.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  > if I was staring down a big wealth gap and decided to propose a concrete policy shift to resolve some of it, I think that it's not a bad idea to get people moved from the 7-11% unemployment category to the 5.4% unemployment category Sure, as long as the categories have no content other than an employment rating, this makes sense. According to the same logic, you could have huge effects on unemployment by giving black people cosmetic surgery and calling them white.
  - dikaiosune 12y ago
    It's not exactly great that race is a decent predictor of education level[1], or of income[2], but that doesn't mean that we have to solve the entire race problem to improve social equality. America has failed miserably for some time now to "cure" racism[3]. So what's wrong with throwing resources at improving some of the social factors which contribute to racial/socioeconomic trends? As an aside, it's a bit simplified and inflammatory to cast this as a black/white thing. If you insist on boiling this down to only being about race (a stance I would disagree with), the comparison is much starker when cast as hispanic/asian[1] or black/asian[2]. [1] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp [2] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0691.pdf http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0691.p... [3] Any contemporary news story about the police in dense urban areas.
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      > As an aside, it's a bit simplified and inflammatory to cast this as a black/white thing. I agree in a limited way. I was originally going to use forced religious conversion as my example instead of cosmetic surgery, but I discovered that while it's easy to find unemployment statistics by race, it's not so easy to find unemployment statistics by religion. Regardless -- as far as I can see, you've completely missed the point that being in a bucket labeled "5.4% unemployment" doesn't necessarily cause people to personally experience 5.4% unemployment. If it sounds strange to you that a group of people might develop better employment statistics by having cosmetic surgery en masse, or by all converting from voodoo to judaism, that should give you pause before concluding that forced education would have any more effect than forced conversion.
      - dikaiosune 12y ago
        Making it easier/cheaper to get an education != forced education. Looking at a trend and making a pretty fair assumption about it having cause/effect tendencies is not "missing the point" of statistics about employment and education. As far as I can tell, it's the whole reason we collect them. One does not become employed to become educated, it's the other way around. Similarly, one does not fail to become educated because one failed to be employed. There might be less of a connection than some would claim, but the link is there. Further, I would be eager to hear about a __practical__ alternative to improved education for reducing inequality. I'm sure there are some, but I'm also sure that making sweeping assumptions about the economic viability of being {religion}/{race}/{insert difference here} doesn't really help anyone unless there's a magical way to make the human brain more tolerant of difference. Surely the real solutions to inequality will come from assessing our weakest points and shoring them up -- education is a pretty weak point in the US right now.
billyhoffman 12y ago
"The broad based demand for a college education is based on the irrational thinking that so many should have a college education in order to work, which is pretty much untrue." Sources? The "you don't need college" meme is quite popular with VC of late, and I think is often true in the technology field. But is this true in other white collar job sectors? I'm honestly asking.

dikaiosune 12y ago

Perhaps the demand is irrational, but the effects are very real: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm It would be nice if we could change the fundamental problems underlying that irrational demand (pre-college schooling which doesn't prepare students for work, a national obsession with white collar jobs, etc.). However, if I was staring down a big wealth gap and decided to propose a concrete policy shift to resolve some of it, I think that it's not a bad idea to get people moved from the 7-11% unemployment category to the 5.4% unemployment category.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> if I was staring down a big wealth gap and decided to propose a concrete policy shift to resolve some of it, I think that it's not a bad idea to get people moved from the 7-11% unemployment category to the 5.4% unemployment category Sure, as long as the categories have no content other than an employment rating, this makes sense. According to the same logic, you could have huge effects on unemployment by giving black people cosmetic surgery and calling them white.
- dikaiosune 12y ago
  It's not exactly great that race is a decent predictor of education level[1], or of income[2], but that doesn't mean that we have to solve the entire race problem to improve social equality. America has failed miserably for some time now to "cure" racism[3]. So what's wrong with throwing resources at improving some of the social factors which contribute to racial/socioeconomic trends? As an aside, it's a bit simplified and inflammatory to cast this as a black/white thing. If you insist on boiling this down to only being about race (a stance I would disagree with), the comparison is much starker when cast as hispanic/asian[1] or black/asian[2]. [1] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp [2] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0691.pdf http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0691.p... [3] Any contemporary news story about the police in dense urban areas.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    > As an aside, it's a bit simplified and inflammatory to cast this as a black/white thing. I agree in a limited way. I was originally going to use forced religious conversion as my example instead of cosmetic surgery, but I discovered that while it's easy to find unemployment statistics by race, it's not so easy to find unemployment statistics by religion. Regardless -- as far as I can see, you've completely missed the point that being in a bucket labeled "5.4% unemployment" doesn't necessarily cause people to personally experience 5.4% unemployment. If it sounds strange to you that a group of people might develop better employment statistics by having cosmetic surgery en masse, or by all converting from voodoo to judaism, that should give you pause before concluding that forced education would have any more effect than forced conversion.
    - dikaiosune 12y ago
      Making it easier/cheaper to get an education != forced education. Looking at a trend and making a pretty fair assumption about it having cause/effect tendencies is not "missing the point" of statistics about employment and education. As far as I can tell, it's the whole reason we collect them. One does not become employed to become educated, it's the other way around. Similarly, one does not fail to become educated because one failed to be employed. There might be less of a connection than some would claim, but the link is there. Further, I would be eager to hear about a __practical__ alternative to improved education for reducing inequality. I'm sure there are some, but I'm also sure that making sweeping assumptions about the economic viability of being {religion}/{race}/{insert difference here} doesn't really help anyone unless there's a magical way to make the human brain more tolerant of difference. Surely the real solutions to inequality will come from assessing our weakest points and shoring them up -- education is a pretty weak point in the US right now.

billyhoffman 12y ago

"The broad based demand for a college education is based on the irrational thinking that so many should have a college education in order to work, which is pretty much untrue." Sources? The "you don't need college" meme is quite popular with VC of late, and I think is often true in the technology field. But is this true in other white collar job sectors? I'm honestly asking.