> There is no way around the idea that education, like everything else, costs resources, time and money, that can be spent on other things. It's a totally valid thing to wonder whether it's the best use of that money there is.
Judging the benefit of education only on the financial bottomline is bound to underestimate its real value.
For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex information to base their voting decisions on. Therefore it is in the interest of a democratic country that citizen have access to education, and that they can afford it.
> when education is subsidized, you're implicitly making the decision that it's more important to pay for that education than to pay for e.g. more help for the homeless, more money for healthcare, etc.
Education is correlated with health and longevity. Also, educated people are more likely to make sane life decisions and plan ahead. Therefore, by subsidising education, one likely reduces the number of homeless and the cost of public health.
But none of this is expressed in the calculation that measures the "value" of education by the personal financial gain an individual can achieve. Therefore I argue that this measure is not suitable to measure the value of education.
> But none of this is expressed in the calculation that measures the "value" of education by the personal financial gain an individual can achieve. Therefore I argue that this measure is not suitable to measure the value of education.
I agree, that would be a very short-sighted calculation. Luckily, that's not even close to the calculation that Bryan Caplan did and is talking about.
I'm not sure if we're actually disagreeing or arguing past each other. Bryan Caplan wrote a book about whether education is "worth it", in many senses - both the personal "is it worth it for me" aspect, but also the "is it worth it for society" aspect. He delved into multiple different topics as part of this question - including, I believe, questions like the ones you raise. (It's been a while since I read his book).
You are not fundamentally disagreeing with the notion of calculating the value of education. You're disagreeing with a specific calculation that you think I (or someone else) did, but which isn't the actual calculation done by anyone.
Judging the benefits of anything only on the financial bottom line is risky. Many extremely valuable things are valuable because they are cheap to the point of irrelevancy. Which is why it is a valid question to ask whether the resources are worth it.
> For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex information to base their voting decisions on.
It has worked pretty well for the last 2,500 years with voters possessing extremely questionable education. The main issue is whether a democracy has a culture of being graceful in both political victory and defeat.
> Education is correlated with health and longevity.
Correlation is not causation. Wealthy people tend to be healthy, long-lived and well educated. It might not be the education as much as having enough wealth for leisure and health.
> Also if anything has become clear in the last 5 years it’s that educated people are much less likely to be deceived by false populist promises.
Agree with the basic premise that the main political division is not between “right” and “left” but “educated people” (ie progressive college-educated) vs “uneducated people” (the working classes.)
Disagree that it’s clear who is right. We will have to wait 20-30 years to see. (Personally I think the working classes are wiser than the progressive elites, but that’s just one opinion..)
The last two years have shown that the educated portion of the population was just as easily deceived by false populist promises, and just as easily provoked into channelling their frustrations onto an undeserving scapegoat.
> It has worked pretty well for the last 2,500 years with voters possessing extremely questionable education. The main issue is whether a democracy has a culture of being graceful in both political victory and defeat.
I would like to hear more about this democracy that has lasted 2500 years please.
> Judging the benefit of education only on the financial bottomline is bound to underestimate its real value.
In the article he mentions that he gets this type of criticism on his book, despite the fact that he spent chapters on these exact kind of questions. Painstakingly including those things is what the whole thing is about.
And now he gets the criticism despite putting that in the article!
The effects of education on democratic participation, workforce participation and public health are all explicitly assessed in Caplan’s book, particularly chapter 6. This comment tends to prove the point he makes in the article: “Quantitative social science is barely relevant in the real world … If you’re lucky, researchers default to common sense. Otherwise, they go with their ideology and status-quo bias, using the latest prestigious papers as fig leaves.”
I am digging through his book and it reads to me like a healthy dose of ideology littered with references to sociology papers that would likely not survive replication.
Additionally, I am reading a back and forth between Bryan and Noah Smith[1]. The main thing that stands out, is that after putting forth such a quantitative focused text on the topic, Bryan seems to resort to an idealogical back and forth with Noah. If you are going to put all this effort into building an excel model that makes your case, why are you not using that as your first line of defense?
Quite frankly, I don't think either Noah or Bryan really make convincing arguments. But that is because the debate between "human capital" and "signaling" is such a squishy topic, and no amount of data analysis or philosophical reasoning is really going to change the debate any time soon.
Of course it is. If literally nobody wants to hear your answer, you might well (to use an example from a previous article) replace your audience with a rock saying “it’s not true. Go away.”, and have the same effect.
I’m predisposed to saying education is insanely beneficial though. I want everyone to have all of it for free.
> For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex information to base their voting decisions on.
Jason Brennan (another libertarian) wrote the book Against Democracy. So these two books should be policy companions.
Which also goes to show how nefarious this assertion of yours is: all people have to do in order to suppress people’s right to participate in a democracy is to defund education and the civil square. Then people become “not informed enough” to process “complex information” (as if our elected representatives seem capable of that… but whatever).
Judging the benefit of education only on the financial bottomline is bound to underestimate its real value.
For example, a democracy can only function if citizens are able to process complex information to base their voting decisions on. Therefore it is in the interest of a democratic country that citizen have access to education, and that they can afford it.
> when education is subsidized, you're implicitly making the decision that it's more important to pay for that education than to pay for e.g. more help for the homeless, more money for healthcare, etc.
Education is correlated with health and longevity. Also, educated people are more likely to make sane life decisions and plan ahead. Therefore, by subsidising education, one likely reduces the number of homeless and the cost of public health.
But none of this is expressed in the calculation that measures the "value" of education by the personal financial gain an individual can achieve. Therefore I argue that this measure is not suitable to measure the value of education.