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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

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Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#11

Post by Chinjut »

Well, yeah. Education increases individual income primarily through competitive advantage in the job market, right? But, also, the function of education in the job market is largely just as a certification arms race, right? Just a ritual we go through to compete for jobs that don’t actually make any use of or require our advanced educations, in most cases. So educating us all doesn’t produce many benefits, because the benefits (so far as the job market was concerned) were largely relative rather than absolute to begin with.

(In case it matters, I’ve felt this same way as a student, as a teacher, and as a member of industry. From every side, it has seemed to me that an awful lot of time, money, and effort is spent on a process that is not actually valued in any direct, substantial way, for the most part, but rather is used only as some competitive signaling filter.)

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#12

Post by apsec112 »

pm90 wrote: post #7

This article compares two graphs and deduces some rather broad realities from it, which are rather incorrect. It assumes that the state of the economy is the same today as it was 25 years ago: obviously, this isn't true. The skill sets in demand have changed drastically which must be accounted for. That said, it does make the good point that it is rather easy to get misled by statistics that say that college graduate…

"I will say this though: the exposure to different ideas and the broadening of the mind that comes from a good education is rather priceless."

I think this is what psychologists call a "taboo tradeoff". Education (and life, health, freedom, etc.) is a sacred value, while money is a secular value, so it's considered taboo to trade one off against the other. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-of-tabo...)

Unfortunately, making these tradeoffs is necessary, because there are many competing values and a limited supply of money. For example, you can show that a hospital must either a) assign a consistent dollar value to human life, or b) must be wasting resources, ie. it could be saving more lives with the money it has. See eg. Peter Singer's essay at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.ht....

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#13

Post by [deleted] »

apsec112 wrote: post #6
mac01021 wrote: post #5

The statistics would be a lot more informative if they broke out the educated segments of the population by field or college major. I don't think many in the 21st century would expect a bachelor's or associates degree in english or history to provide many opportunities for additional income.

Forbes: "Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn't Matter" ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2015/08/12/six-reaso... ) NY Times: "Does the College Major Matter? Not Really" ( http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/does-the-colle... ) WSJ: "Your College Major Is a Minor Issue, Employers Say" ( http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/04/10/your-college-major-is... )

[deleted]

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#14

Post by rayiner »

It's worthwhile to consider where the point of diminishing returns is with education. I'd argue that we are well past it. There is not really that much work even in the modern economy that requires more than a 10th grade general education. We know that because in countries like Germany it is quite common for someone to exit the formal schooling system at 16 and still get a white collar job.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#15

Post by Chinjut »

Chinjut wrote: post #11

Well, yeah. Education increases individual income primarily through competitive advantage in the job market, right? But, also, the function of education in the job market is largely just as a certification arms race, right? Just a ritual we go through to compete for jobs that don’t actually make any use of or require our advanced educations, in most cases. So educating us all doesn’t produce many benefits, because th…

(And, yes: education can of course grant skills which are genuinely required for certain jobs. This being Hacker News, I suppose we'll hear that everyone should learn to code. I'm all for everyone getting to do whatever they wish to do, and if that wish is learning to code, so be it. But I suspect, if everyone did suddenly learn to code, we'd find that coding would, with corresponding suddenness, cease to be a ticket out of poverty...)

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#16

Post by lotharbot »

redthrow wrote: post #8
apsec112 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbes: "Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn't Matter" ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2015/08/12/six-reaso... ) NY Times: "Does the College Major Matter? Not Really" ( http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/does-the-colle... ) WSJ: "Your College Major Is a Minor Issue, Employers Say" ( http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/04/10/your-college-major-is... )

Major Premium: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/major_premium.ht...

Interesting data.

Seems to me like there's a top tier of 3 highly technical majors (EE, CS, ME), and then a big cluster of 9 pretty decent majors (10 of the 12 at this stage might reasonably be called "STEM"). Communications is in the decent tier for women but not men. And then there are a bunch of weaker majors.

The only thing that's even remotely surprising to me is that Chemistry isn't a little higher.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#17

Post by Falkon1313 »

jgh wrote: post #2

I don't really have the time, energy, or knowledge to create a fully cited refutation of the author other than to say that this just seems really wrong. It might not be technically wrong because the author seems to be citing facts and I'm sure they're correct. But it seems wrong in the sense that they're missing the forest for the trees. Between 1991 and 2014 a lot has changed, particularly in the earning power of th…

>Between 1991 and 2014 a lot has changed, particularly in the earning power of the generation being cited as being more educated. This is probably has very little to do with their education, more like it's kind of a macroeconomic ... situation ... they were born in to.

I suspect that's the point. That the reasoning "people with degrees aren't poor, so let's just give everyone a degree" wouldn't result in eliminating poverty, it would result in a bunch of poor people with degrees.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#18

Post by joelbrewer01 »

Hmm, so higher education levels do not fix poverty. But what if the problem is that we just aren't teaching the right things? Could higher quality education -- better teachers, more relevant curriculum, less focus on paper degrees, more focus on creativity -- fix poverty?

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#19

Post by cro1 »

This is just a random unqualified observation so take it with a pinch of salt.

When I compare educated Indian and Chinese people to Americans I just see more willingness to put in hard work on the mundane stuff.

Americans with the same educational qualifications who see a year or two of grunt/drudge work ahead of them to move up the food chain, will more likely quit and do whatever is currently hip. Now some small fraction of these people actually do well and the majority whose startups/youtube channels/gadget blogs/music bands fail find themselves in those overeducated poverty bins.

From what I have seen in Indian and China, I highly doubt poverty is increasing in those educated bins.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#20

Post by LordKano »

Chinjut wrote: post #15
Chinjut wrote: post #11

Well, yeah. Education increases individual income primarily through competitive advantage in the job market, right? But, also, the function of education in the job market is largely just as a certification arms race, right? Just a ritual we go through to compete for jobs that don’t actually make any use of or require our advanced educations, in most cases. So educating us all doesn’t produce many benefits, because th…

(And, yes: education can of course grant skills which are genuinely required for certain jobs. This being Hacker News, I suppose we'll hear that everyone should learn to code. I'm all for everyone getting to do whatever they wish to do, and if that wish is learning to code, so be it. But I suspect, if everyone did suddenly learn to code, we'd find that coding would, with corresponding suddenness, cease to be a ticket…

I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't.

People who want to code, should learn to code. Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth.

We have a society that needs people with many diverse skills. We should be investing more in tech or trade schools than we are in colleges and universities.

People need a way to gain the skills they will need to earn a living but sending everyone to college is a universally bad idea. It'll turn the Bachelor's degree into the new High School Diploma.

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