Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
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Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#2Make college available for everyone for free, but make asking for and talking about degrees illegal in job interviews.
Force employers to actually vet people for what they know and can do and not force otherwise capable people to jump through expensive hoops to display pseudo-signals.
Not only will we be able to help people improve their skills as a society, but I bet college enrollment goes down across the board because most jobs aren’t that hard. Most jobs don’t actually need degrees, it’s just that degrees make hiring much easier.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#3The key problem I think, with higher education, is that we force students to take classes in the name of liberal education. If no one is required to take a class, then students might not take that class, which leads to that professor's usefulness, and perhaps career, coming into question. If anything universities are increasing not only the number of classes a student has to take, but also increasing seemingly-pointless labs and other classes taught by graduate students, so they can then pay those GTA's. It's almost like a pyramid scheme.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#4I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down.
In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.
Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#5The key problem I think, with higher education, is that we force students to take classes in the name of liberal education. If no one is required to take a class, then students might not take that class, which leads to that professor's usefulness, and perhaps career, coming into question. If anything universities are increasing not only the number of classes a student has to take, but also increasing seemingly-pointl…
That's a side effect of Caplan's main objection, that a college degree has become a credential, used for signaling, and not indicating any real merit or learning. Once students recognize that (and they have), they put in the bare minimum to get the credential, and administrators respond by forcing new minimums. It's still possible to get a good education if you choose your institution, classes and professors wisely, but it's frustrating for motivated students to be surrounded by slackers. In a good learning environment, you're going to learn as much or more from your peers as from your teacher.
I highly recommend his book: The Case Against Education - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076ZY8S8J.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#6> If schools aim to boost students’ future income by teaching job skills, why do they entrust students’ education to people so detached from the real world?
Well, precisely because university does not exist to increase future income of its students. It's mostly about extending human knowledge in a formalized way called science, and producing enough doctors to let the institution continues in the future. If one aims to study practical skill there is dozen of other options: engineer and business schools, vocational schools, etc.
I agree however that there is a worrying inflation of required degrees to get an entry position anywhere and that's a waste of time and money for all parties involved.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#7I have posted about this on https://windowsontheory.org/2018/05/02/short-non-review-of-c...
I am of course biased as a faculty (though I think his policy prescriptions would negatively effect public schools more than private universities such as Harvard), but I think Caplan's analysis is extremely shallow.
First, note that if he's right, higher education should be an incredible drag on the economy - we're taking 4 highly productive years out of the workforce. Such an extreme conclusion shouldn't be that hard to test without resorting to anecdotes and contorted reading of data. Educational policies and subsidies vary so greatly between different countries and even states, that if it was such a colossal waste we should be seeing it in the higher GDP or productivity of the less educated countries and localities. (The article is in general very US-centric for an issue that is not specific to the US at all.)
When a locality has less access to education, there would be naturally less of a "credential arms race" and so more people that have just as much base talent but did not go to college. Why aren't employers flocking to those places and hiring high school graduates who would be so much cheaper?
I know one theory Caplan has is that completing college certifies "conformity" and "tolerance for boredom": is spending 4 years and tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars the only way to test for these properties?
Also (at least from my experience in the IDF) conformity and tolerance for boredom are very important for the army, arguably moreso than many other employers, yet they do fine with high school graduates.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#8Make college available for everyone for free, but make asking for and talking about degrees illegal in job interviews. Force employers to actually vet people for what they know and can do and not force otherwise capable people to jump through expensive hoops to display pseudo-signals. Not only will we be able to help people improve their skills as a society, but I bet college enrollment goes down across the board bec…
Respectfully, you are retarded and should kill yourself.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#9I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…
In the old days, there weren't enough people who knew how to do social media marketing. But somehow a bunch more people learned.
I don't know. One might argue that the licensing requirement for escalator mechanics is causing the shortage. Or maybe impediments related to unionized work minimums are causing a bottleneck in the flow of people who are allowed to hold these escalator mechanic jobs.
Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
#10The key problem I think, with higher education, is that we force students to take classes in the name of liberal education. If no one is required to take a class, then students might not take that class, which leads to that professor's usefulness, and perhaps career, coming into question. If anything universities are increasing not only the number of classes a student has to take, but also increasing seemingly-pointl…
That's a side effect of Caplan's main objection, that a college degree has become a credential, used for signaling, and not indicating any real merit or learning. Once students recognize that (and they have), they put in the bare minimum to get the credential, and administrators respond by forcing new minimums. It's still possible to get a good education if you choose your institution, classes and professors wisely,…
I don't presume my institution is representative (nor that it isn't), but for what it's worth, most students I see are not slackers at all. Students often choose the harder courses, and many of them require a significant amount of work (a typical CS course requires 12 hours of work outside lecture and many require much more).