The Purpose of College is Employment

[Wahoo Redux]

Employment is the important thing.

Education is not job training.

Yes: Higher ed, particularly undergraduate education, should be completely predicated on future employment goals.

No: There's more to life than 9 to 5.

Well...kind'a...: This is what I think...

[Ruralguy]

Its complicated.

College can clearly be either partly or almost completely to learn at least the beginnings of what you'd need to know to enter certain professions (engineering, medicine, law, many of the arts and sciences).  However, it doesn't need to be. I think it really can be just for a broad education, and then just get some office job for which you might need to know a little bit more than just what you learned in high school. But is that worth the money?

I think most parents and many students have almost the opposite view: either a college has to train you for a profession or at the very least, have strong enough connections that it can place you into some decent job, and then it really doesn't matter what the college teaches, its just enough to convince employers that their child is good enough at "whatever" that its worth placing them.

[polly_mer]

Go do some research on what students and their families are willing to invest time, energy, and money into doing and what the surveys indicate people are expecting from a college experience.

Go do some research on how angry people are when they don't get what they want out of their educational experiences, especially all those adjuncts or even worse, merely aspiring adjuncts,  who can't get any job they want with the education they have, because it turns out those jobs are already filled with people who had more experience, different skills, or even just better connections.

It's OK.  We'll wait while you research what people want instead of what you want them to want to protect your specific job family that is in danger because most humans want other things than either the job you have or the results of your job.

[Wahoo Redux]

Go do some research on what students and their families are willing to invest time, energy, and money into doing and what the surveys indicate people are expecting from a college experience.

Go do some research on how angry people are when they don't get what they want out of their educational experiences, especially all those adjuncts or even worse, merely aspiring adjuncts,  who can't get any job they want with the education they have, because it turns out those jobs are already filled with people who had more experience, different skills, or even just better connections.

It's OK.  We'll wait while you research what people want instead of what you want them to want to protect your specific job family that is in danger because most humans want other things than either the job you have or the results of your job.

Kind'a close to gibberish there, Polly.

Is this what you are talking about?

https://collegestats.org/2013/05/the-happy-state-of-college-graduates/

Five out of the 10 happiest states in the nation are also in the top 10 for educational attainment. Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts all took top marks in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. They are also among the top 10 states that boast the highest percentages of population with a bachelor's degree or higher. And the nation's happiest state, Hawaii, isn't struggling with educational attainment, either, ranked at No. 15 with nearly 30% of its population backed by four-year degrees.

Is it a coincidence? Bryan Cohen, author of The Post-College Guide to Happiness, thinks there's a connection. Higher education gives people the opportunity to explore their passions, be they writing, engineering, or even magic, Cohen explains. Graduates can use their educational experience to pursue what they love to do. That's why, Cohen says, "educational attainment can lead to some serious happiness."

It's true: college graduates will experience better job conditions, career fulfillment, and pay than their less-educated peers.

Or:  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/want-to-be-happier-and-he_b_8288354

There's a lot of debate right now about the value of higher education and the costs associated with going to college. Central to the discussion are legitimate concerns about affordability and what students actually know and are able to do with the degrees they receive. 

Despite these concerns, ample data - including a recent Gallup-Purdue survey of college alumni - show the benefit college brings in terms of earnings potential and access to quality jobs.

And a new study from the University of Maine adds fuel to the already compelling case for college with this finding: Citizens with postsecondary credentials not only contribute to the economic prosperity of communities; they also live happier, healthier lives.

The study, It's Not Just the Money, authored by Professor Phillip Trostel, finds that college graduates report having "good" or "very good" health 44 percent more than their non-graduate peers do. Further, college graduates are nearly four times less likely than high school graduates to smoke, and are significantly more likely to exercise, wear a seat belt, maintain a healthy weight and regularly see a doctor. Not surprisingly, then, college graduates have a life expectancy of seven years longer than those who hold a high school diploma or less.

College graduates are nearly five times less likely to be jailed or imprisoned than those who have no college experience, according to the report. And graduates utilize about 39 percent fewer government resources, such as emergency assistance and jails, and contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars more over a lifetime in local, state and federal taxes.

What's more, college graduates are the engines of civic movement.

But then there's this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heres-why-so-many-college-grads-are-unhappy/

Is college worth the price?


The latest results from an ambitious Gallup-Purdue research project show that only 50 percent of alumni of the nation's private and public colleges and universities strongly agreed that they got their money's worth for their bachelor's degree -- and even fewer younger grads believe so.

Slightly more graduates of public universities (52 percent) believe strongly that their education was worth the financial commitment than did grads of private institutions (47 percent). Grads who attended research universities, a category that includes the Ivies and other prestigious brand-name schools, were no more likely to be happy at the cost of their degrees than students who attended state schools.

And this:

A majority of Americans who attended college say they received a quality education. But half would change at least one of these three decisions if they could do it all over again: the type of degree they pursued or their choice of major or institution.

Those are among the key findings from a new annual survey conducted by Gallup and Strada Education Network, the former USA Funds.

....

Debt also is a driver of regrets. Not surprisingly, respondents with more student loan debt said they would make different decisions.

However, there was very little variation by debt level among respondents on whether they would pursue a different major, with an overall three-percentage-point range across all five quintiles of debt level. But large debt holders were more likely to say they would attend a different institution or pursue a different type of degree.

So there's the problem in a nutshell that we are all aware of: college does lots of good things but costs too much.

Not sure what you think I didn't already know about the situation of higher ed in America.  As smart and informed as you are, Polly, you say things we all know.

I think the answer is more government support. 

[dismalist]

The situation may be far worse than anyone on these threads thinks.

One Prof Bryan Caplan believes that non-science college education  has the purpose of signalling [I can be on time, I finish my classes, etc.] and that that alone explains the college wage differential. Nothing useful is learned. His point is that it is an extremely expensive signal. Conclusion is that liberal arts education should not be supported by the government. Less is more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1aMLB0uno

[spork]

The situation may be far worse than anyone on these threads thinks.

One Prof Bryan Caplan believes that non-science college education  has the purpose of signalling [I can be on time, I finish my classes, etc.] and that that alone explains the college wage differential. Nothing useful is learned. His point is that it is an extremely expensive signal. Conclusion is that liberal arts education should not be supported by the government. Less is more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1aMLB0uno

If 80% of the payoff from college is signaling, does that mean that 20% of what happens in college is responsible for the 80%?

[dismalist]

Obviously not: Stuff that happens in college is not just learning useful academic material. That contributes 80% to the college wage differential. The learning useful stuff part contributes 20%.

[Ruralguy]

Yes, but it accounts for wage differential with just a bachelors degree. Although most stop there, a significant number do post bachelors training for which the undergrad degree was critical. Also, I wonder if the "just signaling" comments by that author are perhaps too dismissive. Maybe it takes a lot to get a typical 20 year old to signal in that manner, or rather to get a slightly better than typical to really, really do so.

[dismalist]

Yeah, just bachelors degrees. No question that if people want one they should be able to buy one. Question is who pays.

Can people get well paying jobs by learning something useful pre-college, which can be signaled,  or must they pay dearly for a signal that has nothing to do with the education? That's the question.

[Wahoo Redux]

Wonder how smart and accomplished Caplan would be without his education. 

He also rejects Christianity as "idiotic" according to Wikipedia.  And he's an expert on voting, child rearing and open borders.  Hm.

I don't want to dismiss an obviously very smart guy because his message is unsettling, but to me, and I only listened to about 4 minutes of the video, he is part our sarcastic zeitgeist which calls for dismantling the apparatus of education.  It's just cool right now to be hatin' on ed. 

In other words, this is a guy trained by UC-Berkeley and Princeton (PhD) and was able to write his book about how worthless the whole operation is, published by Princeton UP, while riding a pretty nice gig at George Mason.

Not convinced.  Polly should love him though.

[dismalist]

Attack hypotheses, not people.

[pigou]

Job training is performed in trade schools and to some extent in community colleges. 4-year universities are not and have never been training centers.

This notion of "just signaling" isn't supported by the data. Yes, on average a college graduate makes an extra $24,000 per year compared to someone with a high school degree. But if it were "mostly signaling," then we wouldn't see big earnings differentials between different majors and different universities: they all have to "show up" equally. But that's obviously nonsense, we see a differential of $3.4m in median lifetime earnings between the lowest and highest paying degrees -- and that's just undergrad: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/

The mistake I think Caplan is making is that he's suffering from the curse of knowledge. Once you have learned something, it's really difficult to imagine yourself not knowing it. If you asked me how much better I had gotten doing research between my first year of the PhD and now, I'd probably say not very much. I certainly can't think of a break point where I "got it" and it became easy. But I recently went back to a project I did in grad school but never wrote up... and it hit me just how bad it was. So I've clearly learned things since then, even though I can't point to a time when they happened.

I suspect something very similar is the case in college, with some exceptions in mathematics and the natural sciences: you remember when you learned how to do differential equations, because solving them is a concrete skill. But there are many other skills that you acquire without explicitly realizing it. And there's the obvious networking -- aka social capital formation. In a world that highly depends on social capital, it'd be crazy to dismiss that as "signaling."

Planet Money had a great episode about how GM is helping build ventilators. It's not that they're producing them in their own factories. The most useful things they did (and started doing early) was call up suppliers and connect them to their own supply channels. Getting someone in India to pick up the phone on a Saturday morning and put components onto a cargo plane for the US is fundamental if you want to build ventilators... and it depends on someone at GM having established and maintained that connection.

[Wahoo Redux]

Attack hypotheses, not people.

Sure.  Although sometimes the people behind the hypothesis explains the hypothesis. 

I think we can understand a lot about the current presidential administration by examining the president.

No matter what, Caplan is a hypocrite. 

[ciao_yall]

Reminds me of Peter Thiel who was offering $100K to anyone willing to drop out of college and start a business.

[mahagonny]

Yeah, just bachelors degrees. No question that if people want one they should be able to buy one. Question is who pays.

Can people get well paying jobs by learning something useful pre-college, which can be signaled,  or must they pay dearly for a signal that has nothing to do with the education? That's the question.

Why isn't the conclusion that the college graduate does better in life because he has more confidence and self-respect? It could be about his inner life.

Job training is performed in trade schools and to some extent in community colleges. 4-year universities are not and have never been training centers.

Right but every little college wants to 'grow up' and become a university. The university experience is glorified, overrated and not the right fit for some who end up there. President gotta build their legacy.