Guest Post by John Stossel
Today, all Americans are told, “Go to college!”
President Obama said, “College graduation has never been more valuable.”
But economist Bryan Caplan says that most people shouldn’t go.
“How many thousands of hours did you spend in classes studying subjects that you never thought about again?” he asks.
Lots, in my case. At Princeton, I learned to live with strangers, play cards and chase women, but I slept through boring lectures, which were most of them. At least tuition was only $2,000. Now it’s almost $50,000.
“People usually just want to talk about the tuition, which is a big deal, but there’s also all the years that people spend in school when they could have been doing something else,” points out Caplan in my new YouTube video.
“If you just take a look at the faces of students, it’s obvious that they’re bored,” he says. “People are there primarily in order to get a good job.”
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That sounds like a good reason to go to college. But Caplan, in his new book, “The Case Against Education,” argues that there’s little connection between what we absorb in college and our ability to do a job.
“It’s totally true that when people get fancier degrees their income generally goes up,” concedes Caplan, but “the reason why this is happening is not that college pours tons of job skills into you. The reason is … a diploma is a signaling device.”
It tells employers that you were smart enough to get through college.
But when most everyone goes to college, says Caplan, “You just raise the bar. Imagine you’re at a concert, and you want to see better. Stand up and of course you’ll see better. But if everyone stands up, you just block each other’s views.”
That’s why today, he says, high-end waiters are expected to have college degrees.
“You aren’t saying: you, individual, don’t go to college,” I interjected.”You’re saying we as a country are suckers to subsidize it.”
“Exactly,” replied Caplan. “Just because it is lucrative for an individual doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for a country.”
Caplan says if students really want to learn, they can do it without incurring tuition debt.
“If you want to go to Princeton, you don’t have to apply,” he points out. “Just move to the town and start attending classes.”
That’s generally true. At most schools you can crash college lectures for free. But almost no one does that.
“In people’s bones, they realize that what really counts is that diploma,” concludes Caplan.
Because that diploma is now usually subsidized by taxpayers, college costs more. Tuition has risen at triple the rate of inflation.
It’s not clear students learn more for their extra tuition, but colleges’ facilities sure have gotten fancier. They compete by offering things like luxurious swimming pools and gourmet dining. That probably won’t help you get a job.
“If you’re doing computer science or electrical engineering, then you probably are actually learning a bunch of useful skills,” Caplan says. But students now often major in abstract topics like social justice, diversity studies, multicultural studies.
“But don’t the liberal arts expand people’s minds?” I asked. Philosophy? Literature? Isn’t it all making our brains work better?
“That’s the kind of thing you expect teachers to say,” answered Caplan. “There’s a whole field of people who have actually studied this (and) they generally come away after looking at a lot of evidence saying, ‘Wow, actually it’s wishful thinking.'”
A study found that a third of people haven’t detectably learned anything after four years in college.
Although Caplan thinks college is mostly a scam, he says there’s one type of person who definitely benefits — professors like him.
“I’m a tenured professor,” he said. “A tenured professor cannot be fired. … You got a nice income and there are almost no demands upon your time.”
Professor Caplan is only expected to teach for five hours a week.
I told him that sounded like a government-subsidized rip-off.
“Yeah. Well, I’m a whistleblower,” replied Caplan.
I just finished Caplan’s book and it is definitely a myth destroyer. Beyond learning how to read, write, and do math, Caplan’s research shows the only worthwhile education is vocational education. He classifies engineering and science as vocational education because you are actually learning skills for a job in these professions, unlike all the liberal art majors.
The ironic thing is that in my family only one person does not have a college degree and most of the family have advanced degrees. Everyone who is not tending children are gainfully employed in well-paying professions. Yet, the family member who makes the most money, by far, is the one without a degree.
If you go to college for a liberal arts degree you are a stupid or a sucker or probably both. Fortunately, if educators don’t destroy our educational system first, the system will simply collapse upon itself.
I think most people that have worked in higher Ed at a non-ivy league school are more than aware that to a large degree half the students are seat warmers. They pay the bills, help to pay for the Universities move toward club-med type facilities on most campuses to wow the consumers. Record breaking remedial courses nation wide and HS test scores that show average graduates at a 7th grade reading level–yet 60% plus go to college.
The massive portion of folks with student loan debt and lousy employment is beginning to trickle down to the masses. Many colleges are begin to suffer with enrollment and have seen decline for years now. There is just so much vested interest to sell people a work permit and try and help them skate by with a degree in whatever they can come up with to pay the bills. I worked in Higher Ed last decade and the Prof’s I spoke with were well aware of the problem and that was at a selective college with fairly good SAT scores. Too much of Higher Ed has become like a participation trophy, trying to get them to take the easiest courses possible to walk out with some sort of permit.
But education in general is not set up that well for long term retention. You need to review and retest yourself on information to retain it longterm. Students cramming constantly and sleeping poorly before moving onto another course aren’t likely to retain a lot of information even if they care. Thus students do a piss poor job remembering things that aren’t pounded into them usually via their major where there is overlap and repitition. So for a large part of education it is about short term memory, getting the work done then forgetting 90% of it within the next few months. For those that don’t try that hard, which seems to be at least half of the students, they don’t even get that far, its likely gone by the weekend. We know a lot about memory formation now and higher Ed and students themselves are not doing what is generally required to actually remember things. In the modern day cell phone era I’m sure its even worse since everyone believes they can just “look stuff up” and magically be informed as if their brain doesn’t actually have to contain information to produce depth of knowledge.
Bill Gates should have finished college instead of dropping out.
He might have made something of himself if he had, he was showing great potential for becoming a successful lawyer, but he dropped out and wasted his life on personal pursuits instead.
in 1970, 1 in 10 adults had a bachelors degree or higher.
In 2018, 3 in 10 dumb-ass adults have a bachelors degree or higher.
I would estimate that the first 2 years of a college education is simply the last 2 years of a high school education of 20 years ago. 4 years of college today might be equivalent to a 2 year degree from that same time period, if you’re lucky.
I would agree that vocational training is far more useful than a bachelor’s degree on average. But until you focus on quality education k-12 and not graduation rates, you still have a dumbed down workforce and voter base.
With all due respect, I politely disagree about today’s college course work, while I do agree with the absurdity of remedial courses in college. I also agree with you very strongly that we desperately need vocational schools. Germany sends its HS grads to university at 1/2 the rate we do and I don’t see Germany suffering. They have a world-class vocational program.
Both my kids recently graduated college and having reviewed their texts, syllabuses etc from their courses (one Ivy, one liberal arts college in philosophy and economics/psychology, respectively), I’m certain their courses, even the introductory ones, in philosophy, math, economics, psychology, biology etc. were far more difficult than the same intro courses I took 35+ years ago.
The issue is not the top kids at the top schools in difficult majors – they are certainly getting their money’s worth. The issue is all the SJW/gender studies, lesbian pottery, Africana studies, Latinx studies blah blah – these are preposterous wastes of time and money.
My daughter graduated about 10 years ago, during college she changed majors twice, I told her she had to pick a major she could get a real job with. One major she wanted to take sounded like majoring in yoga. I said no way, come home, you don’t need a college education to be a yoga instructor. Luckily she changed, graduated, and with a little luck and hard work she landed a job in her major. Been working ever since, proud to say she is a productive member of society.
PS – I had a good laugh, one day she came home and said she was taxed too much!
Here in Colorado a libtard is running for governor on the platform of fighting Trump, helping illeg, er, I mean ‘dreamers’, and ‘I helped every kid go to college’. I though, you didn’t do them any favors. Most of these kids will be in debt 15 years from now and have a useless degree. Most of these kids, of average intelligence, would have been better served going to a trade school.