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Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#421

Post by bejelentkezni »

indymike wrote: post #417

Honestly big student loans are the problem. Kid one goes to college, graduates with a degree in musical theater, has a $120k debt and gets a $50k first job in marketing. Kid two does two years an a plumbing apprentice. She's been making $45k per year, has no debt and just got her license... And is now making $90k.

Student loans are a big problem but it's not because trade jobs exist. It's because the federal government subsidizes tuition without bothering to pass any laws to cap it. Conveniently lobbied for in turn by public universities, all paid for with the public's money, turning around and selling patents to capitalists and reselling the stadium to the public. And making off like bandits.

And don't kid yourself, any given city where a marketer makes $50k, even before commissions, will not be seeing plumbers make $90k.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#422

Post by erik998 »

erik998 wrote: post #389
arminiusreturns wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree strongly about curriculum. Just to give an example, here is an exerpt about the language curriculum at Eton from a modern (90s) graduate: "Everyone must learn Latin and French for the first two years. Most boys have studied Latin and French for a couple of years before they arrive at the school. The cleverer boys also do Ancient Greek. There are many more languages offered besides these ones. The additiona…

Actually, Mark Zuckerburg went to Phillips Exeter Academy. "At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg excelled in classes. After two years, he transferred to the private school Phillips Exeter Academy, where he won prizes in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and classical studies." [no coding classes, hmm?] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Exeter_Academy The facebook idea came from the booklet tey give each class with…

""" No doubt some people will persist in questioning the usefulness of Latin. For these skeptics I have a two-word answer: Mark Zuckerberg. The 26-year-old founder of Facebook studied Classics at Phillips Exeter Academy and listed Latin as one of the languages he spoke on his Harvard application. So keen is he on the subject, he once quoted lines from the Aeneid during a Facebook product conference and now regards Latin as one of the keys to his success. Just how successful is he? According to Forbes magazine, he’s worth $6.9 billion. If that isn’t a useful skill, I don’t know what is. """

https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/mark-zuckerberg/

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#423

Post by fumar »

wyager wrote: post #339
arminiusreturns wrote: post #291

The oligarchs have been working to detroy the middle class for a long time now (see the Norman Dodd interview or The Leipzig Connection), and education is a key piece of that work, because it truly can be a great equalizer. You will notice not just different curriculum, but entirely different methods being used at a posh place for the elite like Eton, vs a (US) public school or even most upper middle class private sc…

You’re making the same exact mistake that education activists have made for the last 60 years. Education does not significantly improve outcomes. Period. What people observe is that people who went to top-tier schools end up being very successful, and make the (totally false) inference that top-tier schools make you successful. In reality, the people who were almost certainly going to be successful anyway get into th…

How are you defining education and significantly? How does education not provide you with the skills to be on the internet or language? How would you have faired if you were raised in a remote part of the world without structured or familial education?

I mean this in good spirit, is there proof that societal classes are bound by size?

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#424

Post by suifbwish »

water8 wrote: post #351
borodi wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, the easiest way to be successful is to be born in a successful family

Its better to be born in the 95th percentile in intelligence vs the 95th percentile in wealth in terms of where you will actually end up.

People are doubting you but they fail to realize that the more intelligent the person, the more consequential functional applications they can see in everything around them. The difference between a baboon and a human genius is their ability to see tools and techniques by looking at what is around them. We might also consider that money, gold and other non useful items have valuable largely because very smart and influential people convinced everyone they do. The ability to persuade people of what is real and valuable is an aspect of intelligence that is in a class all its own.

side question, why do people who are poor remain in cities and heavily populated areas? Rural areas are much cheaper and the quality of life is much higher generally for the same dollar. Also in the city you and your loved ones are more likely to become the victim of a crime or wrongfully convicted for a crime not committed, addicted to drugs, incarcerated ect ect. It’s also worth noting that most of the US pop lives in city or highly crowded suburban areas, so although not proven its suspectable that most of the leading health related causes of death arise from conditions in those areas.

Moving to a new area is much preferable to an impoverished family trying to fight poverty in a system where the sample size is adequate to predict that they are in essence trying to win against a rigged casino game

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#425

Post by Invictus0 »

foolinaround wrote: post #353

one root cause for poor education that does not seem to be discussed in the thread is the absence of fathers - or even the attention spent by parents of the child. If this is factored out, one could see more uniform outcomes.

My girlfriend's father died when she was 4 and her mother was an alcoholic for many years, she still turned out great and got herself into college at 17. On the other hand, I know many people with tiger or helicopter parents who lack even the most basic life skills, have difficulty socializing, don't know their physical limits, or have strong entitlement complexes. Attention to child is a poor metric for quality of parenting.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#426

Post by [deleted] »

grumblenum wrote: post #358
Applejinx wrote: post #321

A lot of people here need to talk to some entrepreneurs. It doesn't matter how good, or how well funded, the school system is: if the family is poor, you're not going to be able to float rent on the storefront you need, or purchase initial inventory of whatever you're making, much less soak up a few false starts, much less take out a bank loan to do any of these things. Period. This does not in ANY WAY mean there sho…

Here I thought I was underachieving because I was reading HN comments instead of doing anything productive. Now I see that the world, or at least subsets of the population I’m allowed to blame for my problems, has wronged me, which appeals to my petty sense of envy and bitterness and assuages the guilt I had about not actually trying. Perhaps this inequality is actually a grand conspiracy. I wish the press, academia,…

[deleted]

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#427

Post by sudosysgen »

BobbyJo wrote: post #418
fungiblecog wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duh, the poor have to spend money to live, they can't just buy stock and wait for it to increase in value. And at the volumes they can afford the transaction fees would kill any profit.

So now we have come full circle, back to "the poor are poor because of the rich". I'm open to the possibility, but the comments this far inspire little confidence in the soundness of the argument.

How is this a weak argument? The value in the economy has been funneled to shareholders, and the poor are definitionally not shareholders

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#428

Post by monkeydreams »

notJim wrote: post #400
Applejinx wrote: post #321

A lot of people here need to talk to some entrepreneurs. It doesn't matter how good, or how well funded, the school system is: if the family is poor, you're not going to be able to float rent on the storefront you need, or purchase initial inventory of whatever you're making, much less soak up a few false starts, much less take out a bank loan to do any of these things. Period. This does not in ANY WAY mean there sho…

Is it right to focus so much on entrepreneurship? Of course at the top, it matters a lot, but isn't a lot of mobility also driven by more average careers?

> Of course at the top, it matters a lot, but isn't a lot of mobility also driven by more average careers?

Given wage stagnation across much of the Western world, largely driven by "liberal" economic and monetary policy, there is a lot of downward pressure on the benefits of "average" (Non FAANG) careers.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#429

Post by cuddlybacon »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #419
wyager wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re making the same exact mistake that education activists have made for the last 60 years. Education does not significantly improve outcomes. Period. What people observe is that people who went to top-tier schools end up being very successful, and make the (totally false) inference that top-tier schools make you successful. In reality, the people who were almost certainly going to be successful anyway get into th…

> Education does not significantly improve outcomes. Period. Define "significant". People who don't graduate high school do much worse than people who graduate from college on average. Even if you only graduate high school, you'll (on average) make half as much over your lifetime as someone who graduated with a Master's Degree [1]. Right now (on average) - people who dropped out of college make nearly 1/3rd as much a…

Those data points don't disagree with wyager's point.

Both the the Signalling Theory they are advocating and the Human Capital Development (HCD) that I assume you are advocating would make the same predictions on those life indicators you listed.

The difference between the theories is which causes which: does consuming education cause people to have more of the traits that cause good life outcomes OR do the traits that cause good life outcomes also cause people to consume more education?

Pure HCD theory says it is only the first. Pure signalling says only the second.

The two can be mixed. What mix people believe in is important as the two theories result in very different policy goals for our education system.

But both agree that people with more education are going to earn more, commit fewer crimes, experience fewer crimes, be healthier, live longer, etc, etc, etc.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#430

Post by [deleted] »

suifbwish wrote: post #424
water8 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its better to be born in the 95th percentile in intelligence vs the 95th percentile in wealth in terms of where you will actually end up.

People are doubting you but they fail to realize that the more intelligent the person, the more consequential functional applications they can see in everything around them. The difference between a baboon and a human genius is their ability to see tools and techniques by looking at what is around them. We might also consider that money, gold and other non useful items have valuable largely because very smart and inf…

[deleted]
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