The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan

Bryan Caplan is quite consistent. Earlier he wrote a book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. Naturally, he prefers less education.

He thinks we should have less education. He has the big picture right. Earlier this year, Nobel prize in economics goes to people who showed that more schooling is beneficial for individuals. But Bryan Caplan shows that more schooling is detrimental to the whole society.

The following are some quotes from the book.

Critics often paint the signaling model of education as weird or implausible. But the model is just a special case of what economists call “statistical discrimination”: using true-on-average stereotypes to save time and money.17 Statistical discrimination is everywhere. The elderly pay higher life insurance premiums because the elderly tend to die sooner. Cab drivers are more willing to pick up a young man in a suit than a young man in gang colors because the latter is more likely to rob him. Statistical discrimination may be unfair and ugly, but it’s hardly weird or implausible. (P 15)

What are modern model workers like? They’re team players. They’re deferential to superiors, but not slavish. They’re congenial toward co[1]workers but put business first. They dress and groom conservatively. They say nothing remotely racist or sexist, and they stay a mile away from anything construable as sexual harassment. Perhaps most importantly, they know and do what’s expected, even when articulating social norms is difficult or embarrassing. Employers don’t have to tell a mod[1]ern model worker what’s socially acceptable case by case.

Now we’re up to three broad traits that education signals: intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. We could easily extend this list: education also signals a prosperous family, cosmopolitan attitudes, and fondness for foreign films. For a profit-maximizing employer, however, the extensions are a distraction. The road to academic success is paved with the trinity of intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. The stronger your academic record, the greater employers’ confidence you have the whole package (P 18)

Your fake diploma lands you a sweet job. By the time your boss sees your flaws, some of your coworkers will be your friends. Maybe the boss retains you out of pity, or to avoid a blow to morale. If and when the boss’s patience runs out, they probably won’t blatantly fire you. Instead, they’ll nudge you to “find a better match.” When potential employers check up on you, your current employer has every reason to cover for you—allowing you to reboot your saga of deception and disappointment. (P 26)

The best education in the world is already free. All complaints about elite colleges’ impossible admissions and insane tuition are flatly mistaken. Fact: anyone can study at Princeton for free. While tuition is over $45,000 a year,42 anyone can show up and start attending classes. No one will stop you. No one will challenge you. No one will make you feel unwelcome. Gorge yourself at Princeton’s all-you-can-eat buffet of the mind. Colleges do not card. I have seen this with my own eyes at schools around the country.

 If you keep your learn-for-free scheme to yourself, professors will assume you’re missing from their roster owing to a bureaucratic snafu. If you ask permission to sit in, most professors will be flattered. What a rare pleasure to teach someone who wants to learn! After four years of “guerrilla education,” there’s only one thing you’ll lack: a diploma. Since you’re not in the system, your performance will be invisible to employers. Not too enticing, is it?

Imagine this stark dilemma: you can have either a Princeton education without a diploma, or a Princeton diploma without an education. Which gets you further on the job market? For a human capital purist, the answer is obvious: four years of training are vastly preferable to a page of paper. But try saying that with a straight face. Sensible versions of the signaling model don’t imply the diploma is clearly preferable; after all, Princeton teaches some useful skills. But you need signaling to explain why choosing between an education and a diploma is a head scratcher rather than a no-brainer. (P 27)

Andrew Carnegie caustically captures this tension:

 Men have sent their sons to colleges to waste their energies upon obtaining a knowledge of such languages as Greek and Latin, which are of no more practical use to them than Choctaw. . . . They have been crammed with the details of petty and insignificant skirmishes between savages, and taught to exalt a band of ruffians into heroes; and we have called them “educated.” They have been “educated” as if they were destined for life upon some other planet than this. . . . What they have obtained has served to imbue them with false ideas and to give them a distaste for practical life. . . . Had they gone into active work during the years spent at college they would have been better educated men in every true sense of that term. The fire and energy have been stamped out of them, and how to so manage as to live a life of idleness and not a life of usefulness has become the chief question with them. (P 65)