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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

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Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#21

Post by meric »

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 think a lot of students' mindset is to pass with minimal effort as opposed to throughly understand the subject matter. When studying they focus on what's require to pass exams instead of what will contribute most to society. Exams aren't constructed to model what's best for society - they're there to help the universities or educational institutions convince students it's worth it to give them money.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#22

Post by redthrow »

lotharbot wrote: post #16
redthrow wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, I wonder why so many people keep repeating "study STEM" instead of "study Engineering or Finance or Medicine", considering the fact that "S" (Biology/Chemistry) and "M" (Math) seem to be pretty weak.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#23

Post by tonmoy »

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…

I don't know about your developed country, but education seem to have helped the people in the poor developing country I am from. I feel as more people got educated, the more ambitious they became. Instead of doing the same things their forefathers used to do, they got a broader perspective and started venturing into more businesses. More engineers, doctors, accountants and economists have also helped. When you say that someone does not need a specialized piece of education because she will never use it, you are confining her to the life you think she should lead, while more specialized education while not always directly useful can help people see what they can become. But that's just my feeling, no data, no stats

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#24

Post by fanzhang »

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…

I don't think it's a commonly accepted conclusion that education increases income primarily through competitive advantage (i.e. it's a zero sum game).

Take, for example, being educated on home farming methods to grow 200 cabbages a year instead of 100. In this case your income grows directly as a result of your education.

Now yes there are some cases that may be signaling, but I'd like to see some empirical evidence that education is mostly zero-sum.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#25

Post by ewzimm »

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…

The ironic thing about it is that it falls for the same trap that it criticizes others for. This is a classic example of having an idea, finding some data that supports the idea, then explaining why it could support it.

There's an old stereotype that people in poverty are lazy and unproductive by nature, and this reads a lot like a defense of that idea.

This is basically a false dichotomy. It doesn't really offer alternative explanations. I could say that statistics show that wealth is increasingly consolidated every year and the bar for being part of the elite is raised a little each year, including educational requirements, and I could just as easily support my claims with the same data.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#26

Post by onion2k »

rayiner wrote: post #14

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.

Isn't there a greater focus on apprentices and in-work training though? It's not like people leave school at 16 and stop learning, surely?

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#27

Post by sndean »

I saw a study recently [0] that suggested that college acceptance alone, regardless of attendance, was a good predictor of lifetime earnings.

E.g., if you're accepted into Harvard, but decide instead to attend a cheap state school (or don't goto any college), you'll end up earning just as much as your identical twin who attended.

[0] I'm looking for it now..

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#28

Post by galdosdi »

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…

Have you found noticing this (the large degree to which education is just a filtering/grading ritual rather than a process for actually imparting useful learning) incredibly frustrating?

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#29

Post by stalcottsmith »

No one seems to be asking what was done to education to produce the higher graduation rates. Is it really true that everyone is now "smarter" or were standards changed to achieve the desired outcome? What good is it to have a college degree that is marginally superior to or in the case of some majors, no better than a high school diploma of 25 or 40 years ago?

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#30

Post by nikofeyn »

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…

i haven't read the article but you are discussing education as it stands today and not what education should be in the ideal sense. education shouldn't be about the bullshit standardization and paper seeking that it has become. instead, it should be what education is all about: intellectual and skilled growth. if we truly educated people, this would help becuase it creates the skills necessary to adapt to and change one's situation.
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