The Problem with Free College Tuition (College Wars Part I)
Many European countries offer free education to those who want it. The idea is that education is good, and the more educated people get, the better. Since education is costly however, this is not necessarily true.
The main problem with education is that it is a partially zero-sum pursuit.
While classes in computer science and engineering may teach skills applicable in the job market, most classes don’t. Instead, they claim to ‘teach you how to think’. I am a little dubious. Not only have studies showed no increase in intelligence from college, having been through the experience myself I can say that the majority of time is spent learning specific facts that are quickly forgotten. My point is that while college may offer some true benefits to a person’s future productivity, the real purpose of schools is to credential a candidates drive and aptitude. For a certification, 160,000 dollars is a lot of money. Consequently, by simply educating more people two things are likely to happen:
- Top students may have to get higher degrees than previously to distinguish themselves. Since college is mostly about people jostling for post-college job positions, if more people go to college it will be hard to distinguish the good job candidates from the bad ones. This might force the best to move up a notch in educational attainment to prove there worth. Since the reason for additional education is better credentials, this will be costly in money in time but not provide a sufficient (if any) productivity boost.
- There will be more people who spend four years learning nothing at a great cost. Since college is mostly a case of zero-sum competition, additional people attending college costs money without increasing the true productivity of these students. This is a net loss.
If we think about it, the root problem with trying to educate everyone is that the students remain the same. Education does not make people smarter, and many jobs require aptitude rather than knowledge (you learn what you need to know on the job). Consequently, having more educated people does not necessarily lead to a better workforce. Education becomes an unproductive arms race.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
You can at least partly blame the Supreme Court and Congress for the college “arms race.” Federal law greatly restricts the ability of employers to give IQ-style aptitude tests to job applicants. Many employers therefore hire only people with college degrees, even for jobs with no real need for degrees, because they figure that having a degree means that an applicant (probably) is not a complete babbling idiot.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Honestly, a straight-up quota system (where you had to normalize candidate scores by the z-score difference between their race’s average and the majority’s average) would be less harmful than the current system. At least then you’d be able to enforce standards for most of the population when hiring, and people wouldn’t have to engage in ever-increasing races for credentials. Unfortunately, I don’t see Griggs v. Duke Power (the case in the SC you’re implicitly referring to) going away anytime soon, particularly given that the percentage of the population that benefits from the ‘diversity’ status quo is increasing yearly.
June 9th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hi Gray Swan. Just found your website in a most circuitous way. I’m not sure if I’m your target audience, but here goes.
I totally agree with you about the value of a college education. I was actually part of the first generation in my family to attend college, so it was very important for me to get my degree. I learned a lot at college, but it was the socialization skills I gained that were of the most value to me, rather than actual academic knowledge.
I used to advocate that every child should have a chance to go to college, but not anymore. I’ve seen it where first a college degree gave you an advantage in the workforce, then an MBA degree was required to get ahead. Now nothing seems to matter anymore, except, if you have a college degree, maybe your e-mailed resume won’t be automatically routed to the recycle bin.
Most careers do not require 4-year degrees. Most of us could do quite well with maybe an associate’s degree and a really good mentoring program. From what I see in the work force, there are a bunch of well-educated morons running around like crazy. I don’t think that our country having a higher number of college graduates has helped the overall quality of the workforce. If even more people attended college, it would just mean more precious resources would be spent for ever decreasing returns.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:25 am
I agree. Middle-class jobs can by and large be done with a high school education. But it’s politically good to say you’re expanding access to opportunities by sending everyone to college, when all you’re doing is feeding the zero-sum competition you describe. There’s no way to turn back the clock (say, by removing federal funds for education) without screwing the first generation to be denied full access to ‘college’.