re: "How Do You Know You Have Been “Educated”?"

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz addressed the swindle at the heart of the education bubble.

Money quote(s):

"(M)any of these young people may not understand that they aren’t really, despite the time and money spent, actually educated.

The liberal arts of today are those fields with little or no empiricism. In other words, if the field doesn’t have a lot of math, the information it deals with is subjective and untestable. Even supposed “soft” sciences in the liberal arts like sociology or psychology lack true scientific rigor. Given that, how do liberal-arts graduates know that they’ve really been taught something worthwhile? How do they know they haven’t been loaded up with gibberish?"

I recall my freshman 5-hour engineering calculus professor explaining that the reason for learning all that math was simply so that people couldn't lie to you, that you would be able to tell when something wasn't mathematically so, that you would know what was true (and what wasn't).

"Most of what is taught in the liberal arts does not equip the student with objective skills. Instead, most of what students learn are elaborate hypotheses validated only by a popularity contest among the professors themselves. Most of those hypotheses will end up judged by history to be gibberish — e.g., Marxism.

Most degrees in the liberal arts, especially the advanced degrees, really just equip the student to become a liberal-arts professor. Given how few professorships open up, most liberal-arts graduates don’t actually end up with marketable skills.

I think a lot of liberal-arts graduates have been convinced they have learned something of great value. Why should they believe otherwise? We are taught since childhood how wise and wonderful all our teachers are. We are told how uplifting and ennobling education is. Why would students question whether their trusted professors are teaching them anything true and/or valuable in the future workplace?

What a horrible realization to find out that you haven’t actually been educated. What a horrible realization to find out you owe tens of thousands of dollars and you don’t have any skills to compensate. What a horrible realization to find out you are no more employable than someone who never went to college in the first place.

These kids feel cheated and they are right. They were told they were actually getting “educated” but they weren’t. They borrowed tens of thousands of dollars for nothing."

Postgraduate studies are a mechanism for producing more academics; professors, in other words. And since there simply aren't enough professorships to go around, it amounts to something of a Ponzi scheme run by universities.

11/8

re: "College As Ritual"

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz examined the consequences of faulty assumptions.

Money quote(s):

"A constant refrain is that young adults went tens of thousands of dollars into debt for degrees and now they can’t find even minimum wage jobs. I don’t think they really understand the purpose of education."

The purpose of education, from the standpoint of a student (and their long-suffering parents) is to prepare someone to enter "the professions." From a societal standpoint, such as that envisioned by the Morrell Land Grant Act, was to train tomorrow's leaders of society, to include the training of militia officers.

"Carefully missing from most of the complaints is the type of degree they got, but I think it’s fairly clear that most of these people got liberal-arts degrees. Moreover, there is no evidence that they pursued these degrees with any eye towards practical economic returns for their considerable financial investment.

I really get the sense that many of these people simply don’t understand that an education is supposed to equip you with skills that make you valuable to other people. Instead, I think these kids have somehow got the idea that college is more of a ritual you have to go through, a kind of right of passage, that entitles you to a middle-class or better life-style while pursuing a job you find interesting and emotionally fulfilling."

The mindset isn't all that new, and it wasn't all that long ago (just a few short years) that possession of the sheepskin itself was a sufficient credential to guarantee a middle class job (or better) and the lifestyle that went with it.

The availability of massive amounts of student loan money has allowed universities to ramp up their fees many times the rate of inflation; after all, the students would simply borrow the money anyways. What matter that the universities and our government have successfully created the country's first nation-wide debtor class of indentured servants.

"We need to think long and hard how so many young people simply don’t understand the purpose of education. Where did they get the idea that a liberal-arts degree automatically entitled them to a middle-class income that could easily pay off tens of thousands in student loans?"

The first part (liberal arts degree = middle class income) is somewhat unfair to lay all of the blame for on the students, given that it had been true not so long before.

The second part is newer; there never used to be that much student loan money available. Taking on that kind of debt without learning a "hard" degree such as in engineering, science & technology, accounting, or at least business, was an iffy proposition at best. It betrays something of a fantastical mindset, as if all of them expected to marry into money or something.

11/8

re: "Could We Just Buy Off Gaddafi's Mercenaries?"

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz has clearly been reading her Machiavelli.

Money quote(s):

"Gaddafi is relying on foreign mercenaries to serve as his security troops just like Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu relied on hired Palestinians. This is a sure sign that his regime has little to no internal support.

My spouse and I were explaining this to our son who asked, “So, since they’re mercenaries, couldn’t we just outbid Gaddafi?”

We laughed at the idea at first but then stopped to think. Back in the day when mercenaries were far more common, they could sometimes be bought off especially if it looked like their current employer would never be able to pay up. The basic economics of a mercenary life has not changed so maybe Gaddafi’s mercenaries would be just as susceptible to financial inducements as their historical predecessors. Gaddafi supposedly has a lot of money to pay his mercs with but I think it safe to say we have more and a much better track record of paying off."