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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

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Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#51

Post by DiabloD3 »

rickycook wrote: post #37
autarch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless, of course, all home cabbage farmers receive the education, thus doubling the supply of cabbage on the market, which we would expect to more or less halve the price, leading to ... a zero sum game ;)

and now we need half as many cabbage farmers, which means that half those people doing manual labor can do something else, which in turn makes the economy more productive either way, you get more of something in the economy, even if it's not money for those in poverty. in this case, it'd likely lead to food becoming cheaper and more people being able to eat I fail to see how education hasn't benefited those in need i…

Except we're now leading to one of the major problems in the current US economy: we now have too many workers, and not enough jobs, due to the large scale improvements in efficiency since the end of WW2.

So, we're back to what started this: people are going to school, getting education, and now they're working as the local McD's night shift manager with a masters in their pocket.

Making better workers only helps if there are enough better jobs to go around, otherwise it is just inflating a massive bubble in the education industry.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#52

Post by _Robbie »

stevetrewick wrote: post #40

Author states that if you contemplate the two graphs you'll have an epiphany. Quite right, it went "Wow, that is not how you analyse data and I'm sure I heard about an actual investigation with cited sources and actual math and everything which came to pretty much the opposite conclusions". [0] [0] https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/

The link you cited seems to be answering the question "Does more education for an individual decrease poverty for that individual?", while the original post is answering the question "Does more education for a society decrease poverty for society as a whole?". These are two very different questions, and it is quite possible that they have opposite answers.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#53

Post by nishitsh »

Gaining degree makes most of us poor, Isn't that the case. What i was thinking can we build a infrastructure on top of blockchain technology to make the very fact of education free and for all as every one knows each others ability or degree or area of expertise with this infrastructure.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#54

Post by SFJulie »

Education made jobs more competitive.

It was a social lift taking people up. On the other hand, by making workers more productive it reinforced the competitive advantage of being born wealthy.

Too harsh competitions creates cheating.

And there is no lift taking wealthy/high positioned people down when they are incompetent, especially when governments gives free money to the stock exchange (QE).

Well, we are heading full speed to Victorian era and hard social conflict, because educated poor will eventually understand the game is rigged.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#55

Post by throwawaykeno »

sndean wrote: post #27

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..

> (or don't goto any college)

I don't remember that being part of the conclusions.

Also, it's hard for me to take that study seriously. Good state schools can be as good as or better than Harvard. Basically I took the conclusion to be "there's a lot of greatness outside of the ivys"

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#56

Post by mjevans »

tropo wrote: post #33

You can classify degrees by the portion of students who end up doing something directly requiring that degree. Suddenly, it becomes clear what is going on. Your high school guidance councilor probably told you that the degree wouldn't matter much, which is correct for somebody like him. For a large portion of the population, a degree is purely signalling. It shows you are a more upper class, more able to plan ahead,…

While I agree that more people in the STEM fields would be a good thing, it's with a caveat: those people should actually enjoy and do well in those fields.

I would like society to be a little more flexible about basic living so that overall greed can be less of a problem and following your passion, dreams, and doing new things can be explored options.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#57

Post by Annatar »

The analysis neglects one major point: a lot of people got degrees in the humanities and arts: dual majors in English literature and history, or sociology and psychology... what are you going to engineer with that? Engineering requires physics, mathematics, molecular biology, chemistry, material science, higher logic and cognitive capacity... English literature won't help too much with finding a new tensile strength alloy, and sociology can be only marginally used at best when trying to design a small form factor pump which must reliably pump inordinate amounts of gas or fluid, or when attempting to craft a VHDL or Verilog program to reprogram the FPGA, in order to test a new chip design, or when studying protein folding while trying to isolate the cause of cancer...

Just going to college and getting a degree in something like sociology or English literature, because it's the easy way out, isn't enough to end poverty; no wonder it does not work! Ironically, those very same history majors did not learn from history: most humanities and arts majors (poets, writers) were poor.

It has to be a university degree for the professions in demand, and the graduate must be ambitious, pay attention to detail, and want to deliver high quality work, not take shortcuts at every turn and opportunity "because math is hard".

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#58

Post by tommyman »

apsec112 wrote: post #12
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-tab…

That seems a very long-winded way of saying that people have values that are more important than financial gain.

I guess I'm interpreting wrong because that is obvious and there is nothing taboo about it (cultures will be different re. taboos anyway).

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#59

Post by dagw »

LordKano wrote: post #20
Chinjut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 ne…

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.

Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can become programmers, they should learn to code because knowing how to code can make you better at virtually any job you end up in.

Re: Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015)

#60

Post by LionessLover »

Annatar wrote: post #57

The analysis neglects one major point: a lot of people got degrees in the humanities and arts: dual majors in English literature and history, or sociology and psychology... what are you going to engineer with that? Engineering requires physics, mathematics, molecular biology, chemistry, material science, higher logic and cognitive capacity... English literature won't help too much with finding a new tensile strength…

So if every "social science" major (and why not add business and law students) instead studied engineering, they'd all find jobs? I'm not even asking about well-paid jobs. Is there a shortage of engineers on the market now? Would more engineers magically lead to more jobs (supply-side economics works so well... oh no!)?

What's the difference between "anyone can be rich" and "everyone can be rich"? Because this is similar. Yes, anyone can better themselves through more education in "the right field". What makes you think that "anyone" and "everyone" is the same problem?

Have a look at science and the problem of Ph.D.s to find jobs in their fields (chemistry, physics, biology - not "social science" Ph.D.s): http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-... (also has a Part #2 linked at the bottom)

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