The Purpose of College is Employment

[dismalist]

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/

Not everything in college is mere signalling. The earnings differentials among majors support the idea that signalling is key to cash: An engineer has gotta know how to build a bridge that doesn't fall down. That's big bucks for the potential builder. Less bucks for the sociology major, but still more than a high school graduate earns --- on account of the signal!

Caplan said somewhere that at Berkeley engineering majors wore sweatshirts that read: As GPA goes to zero, major goes to Political Science! :-)

[pigou]

The earnings differentials among majors support the idea that signalling is key to cash: An engineer has gotta know how to build a bridge that doesn't fall down. That's big bucks for the potential builder. Less bucks for the sociology major, but still more than a high school graduate earns --- on account of the signal!

The "signaling" component is the part that excludes the human and social capital formation -- i.e. the things you learn and the people you meet. It originated from an old model that basically made the case that *assuming* people got nothing out of college, it'd still be rational for people to pay and go.

You start off with people for whom learning new things is easy and people for whom it is hard. The former would go to college and get a degree, while the latter would take jobs without going. Employers looking to hire people for whom learning things is easy would then want a college graduate, even if that person didn't actually learn anything while they were there: by virtue of having gone, they've revealed the kind of person they are. And from the model, it follows that the "cost" of college (in practice in terms of difficulty) determines whether everyone goes or nobody goes ("pooling") or whether only those for whom the effort cost is low will go ("separating"). The pooling equilibria are bad, because employers won't be able to tell the two apart (so wages are an average) and if everyone ends up going, then it becomes a pure waste of effort (keep in mind that the model assumes no actual benefits to make a simple point).

The signaling component would likely be a big part of why someone with an English degree from Harvard might still be hired by an investment bank. They wouldn't care about anything he learned while getting his degree, but they'd (most likely rightly) assume that this is the kind of person who is willing to work hard to understand new material and would be driven to excel at the firm.

[dismalist]

Precisely!

The point is that it's expensive as hell, even for the vast bulk of the beneficiaries, and surely for the rest of us as parents and taxpayers.

Buona notte.

[spork]

I would expect that as more people obtain bachelor's degrees -- in the aggregate, regardless of from which universities the degrees were obtained -- the more potential employers have to treat applicants like Akerlof's used cars and the more important signaling becomes.

At my U.S. university, more than 85% of incoming students enter with a particular major in mind, with the overwhelming majority of that 85% choosing the major based almost entirely on the assumption that it is a direct path to a specific job. Major in education to become a teacher. Double major in secondary education and history to become a high school history teacher. Major in nursing to become a nurse. Major in criminal justice to become a police officer. Major in "business" to become a "businessperson." I even continue to see incoming students acting on the dumb and incorrect assumption that majoring in political science is preparation for law school, or that majoring in biology is preparation for medical school.

I never encounter students who have enrolled in college solely to "become a well-rounded person," "live a life of the mind," or "pursue learning for learning's sake." There is always the belief that getting a bachelor's degree will improve one's earning potential, and that belief is either the only or the main motivating factor.

I still think that 20% of what happens while or to a person in college is responsible for 80% of the signaling, just like 20% of what a person experiences in college is responsible for 80% of the learning. The pandemic-induced shift to online courses could demonstrate just what that 20% comprises.

[polly_mer]

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

No, I've written on the signaling effects before and been shot down multiple times.  An argument I find compelling is "if what employers are looking for is a certain level of group conformity and respect for authority, well, those are precisely the last people who will skip the traditional signalling mechanism".  Large employers usually want people who work well in bureaucratic systems along with having some useful skills or the ability to be educated/trained.

The social capital aspect is also huge in and off itself and generally plays well with signaling.

Social capital, as argued by sociologist James Coleman, is defined as those intangible resources that come embedded within interpersonal relationships or social institutions. They can be as strong as that of family members, friends, colleagues or fellow students, or as weak as distant LinkedIn connections. But when push comes to shove, a connection can mean the difference between a job and unemployment, between a college acceptance and rejection—even between sticking with high school and dropping out.

Source: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-01-09-for-students-to-succeed-social-capital-matter-just-as-much-as-skills-here-s-why

People usually do what those around them do.  That can be bad as in a crab bucket effect or it can be good as people just expect that they will all take internships, study hard, and network with the people who have middle-class, college-degree-required jobs to offer.  Most jobs in that category are not advertised and thus one can only get them through a network.  You can't apply for something that you don't even know exists.


Now that I'm on the hiring side, I also find compelling "The perceived excellence of a college, on both student and employer sides, is much more closely linked to the exclusivity of its admissions process than to anything that looks remotely like an increase in the aggregate skill of its undergraduates"

New graduates from Super Dinky would not be considered at all, but we get a lot done over the summer with second-year college students from specific institutions.  We even have summer internship programs for people who will enter college in the fall.  While its possible that we would continue with a local student who had a high school internship with us, the local "loser" students go to the state flagship or have already earned a useful certificate/AS degree from the CC as they finish high school.

The local HS graduates who go right to work often come to to work for us in areas where academic inclination is much less important than other skills like machine shop or being literate/numerate enough to do secretarial/clerk work and want to do so for $35k/year right out of high school.

You start off with people for whom learning new things is easy and people for whom it is hard. The former would go to college and get a degree, while the latter would take jobs without going. Employers looking to hire people for whom learning things is easy would then want a college graduate, even if that person didn't actually learn anything while they were there: by virtue of having gone, they've revealed the kind of person they are. And from the model, it follows that the "cost" of college (in practice in terms of difficulty) determines whether everyone goes or nobody goes ("pooling") or whether only those for whom the effort cost is low will go ("separating"). The pooling equilibria are bad, because employers won't be able to tell the two apart (so wages are an average) and if everyone ends up going, then it becomes a pure waste of effort (keep in mind that the model assumes no actual benefits to make a simple point).

Agreed. 

[polly_mer]

We're seeing reports of buyer's remorse, Wahoo.

Among respondents who are graduates of nondegree vocational programs, such as certificate or nondegree training programs offered by two-year colleges, 70 percent agreed that their education was worth the cost, compared to 62 percent of graduates of terminal bachelor's degree programs. That gap widened among respondents who agreed strongly: 57 percent of vocational and technical graduates compared to 40 percent of terminal bachelor's degree holders.

...

graduates who received credentials in health-care fields were more likely to strongly agree that their education was worth the cost (52 percent) and made them an attractive job candidate (72 percent), compared to graduates in liberal arts fields, where 34 percent strongly agreed that their degree was worth the cost and 36 percent strongly agreed it would benefit their careers (see below).

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/11/18/survey-graduates-value-credentials

More than 40 percent of college graduates take a job out of school that didn't require a degree.
...

Recent grads who end up in jobs that didn't require a college degree are five times as likely to still be in such a position five years later, compared with those who put their diploma to use right away.

It can be hard to break out of that path, since employers may typecast applicants by their most recent experience.

Ten years later, three-quarters of graduates who took jobs early on that didn't demand a degree will be in the same spot. And these graduates earn around $10,000 a year less than their counterparts who started early in jobs that required a college degree.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/why-your-first-job-out-of-college-really-really-matters.html

[Wahoo Redux]

We can ignore the life and lifestyle benefits (several of which I posted earlier in this thread) because of the correlation without causation argument, or we can also acknowledge that there is social good from college despite the cost that is not as easy to quantify as, say, "signalling."

I'm not going to pay $24 or whatever for Caplan's book (which has failed to make much of a mark yet), but I did read what I could on Amazon preview, and I skimming what I reasonably could about the guy online, starting with Wikipedia and ending with a couple of reviews and an interview.  Some people cotton to his ideas, a great many don't----so sorry Big-D, he's hardly the last word in education.

And I have to point out again the Caplan is a product of Grade-A educational pedigree, starting with charter school and ending with Princeton.  Could he have written books on stupid voters, bad parents, open borders and dumb education without years of scholastic training?  Perhaps.  But I'm betting not. Not that many people write academic books without hard academic training.  Caplan's snapping at the hand that feeds him (and he's an arrogant ass if you read his comments).

His first most egregious point, which some egregious thinkers-on-the-subject share, is that employment is the measure of college.  Meh.  I've always thought that, if we are just being mercenary about ed, is that college is a ticket to the middle class lifestyle: decorum, socialization, experience, knowledge (yeah, we learn things in college), exposure to wider ideas than just our home town and job, salary and employment---the whole deal. 

The most egregious thing he says, some of his prime evidence against education, is something to the effect that 'adults don't remember what they learned in college if you ask them,' which would strike me as ignorant buffoonery except that (as Caplan will tell you) he's spent 40 years in education.  In other words, the guy knows some of the best college students in the nation---he's seen people achieve.  He's just denying it.

Firstly, yeah, we do learn things in college.  Can I tell you exactly the causes of the French Revolution or the exact differences between a strike/slip fault and a subduction-zone fault?  Of course not.  You'd ask a historian or a geologist anyway.  But I know what these are, and that was a long time ago that I learned about them.  Caplan seems to think we should all be able to recite data like Sheldon Cooper or the Professor on Gillian's Island.  Right there his argument is a no-go.

I did a lot of jobs after college.  No one ever asked me what a slip/strike fault was or what Shakespeare's most famous sonnet was.  I knew how to learn, however, and when I had to calculate premium (having forgotten even long division by that point) I could pick it up almost immediately.

Perhaps it is my experience teaching both intro writing classes and then advanced writing classes, and my time as a writing center director, in which I sometimes see students I taught in their freshman years.  People improve in college.  They write better, they research better, they know what to look for better, etc.  In other words, they learn to think.  They are not perfected working bees, but they have learned.  Have they learned enough to justify the cost?  Maybe.  At least half the people who graduate college have some degree of satisfaction.  The other half seem to regret having to pay so much without obvious reward----sounds like human nature to me.

Someone, probably Polly, will post some "study" illustrating how little today's business leaders, scientists, politicians, etc. (those people now running things) learn while in college----and that's fine, let's make it better.  But let's not also pretend that the people doing the studies aren't also products of their education which taught them how to survey, think, write, and castigate the system that created them.

I've played music for many years.  I've forgotten almost everything I've ever memorized (and sometimes non-musicians just expect me to whip out a tune on-the-spot because I've played so long) because memorization just doesn't last that long unless one constantly reinforces the memory or has an eidetic memory or something.  Sometimes I even forget that I've played a particular piece until I hear it on the radio and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I should learn to play that again."  But I learned to play.  I can play.  I can play because I memorized, learned, forgot, memorized again, got better at learning, playing, and memorized, until I am an advanced amateur who wishes he was much better.  I learned from the process of learning, which is the way it works.

I'm sure Caplan understands this.  He has hopped on the bandwagon and probably hoped to make a buck.  If it were the '70s he'd probably be writing about the Freakonomics of "super predators" or cocaine.  If he really, truly, honestly believed what he'd written, and if he is a man of integrity, he would immediately resign his post at George Mason and write the trustees, asking them to reinvest his salary (which I bet is a lot more than most of us make) in a local charity.  But he didn't.  He's still at good old G.M., sucking on the academic teat.

[Wahoo Redux]

We're seeing reports of buyer's remorse, Wahoo.

As always, you think you've made a point, Polly, but you haven't.  You've restated your obsession.  Again.

You've posted about basic human behavior, firstly.

Secondly, "62 percent of graduates of terminal bachelor's degree programs" did think it was worth the cost, so some don't have buyer's remorse, and another 40 percent "strongly agree" that their degrees were worth the cost, so they really don't have buyer's remorse. 

Thirdly, fine, let the certificate holders be happy.  Good on them.  But 30 percent do not think the nonvocational school degree was not worth the cost.  Interesting.

And typically you are expecting college to produce worker bees, which is not what it was designed to do.

[Ruralguy]

You're taking his argument farther than he does, Wahoo. I've heard him say (and I just got the book, so I haven't read it yet) that he is not saying that college is a waste, just that the advantage it gets you (just after a bachelors degree) may not be worth the cost considering that (by his analysis) the advantage is mainly a social one.

Since he probably has two degrees post bachelors (or the equivalent), the signaling argument wouldn't really apply anyway, except maybe partially how he got into grad school. Though, in that other thread we have talked about how even undergrad can follow you for your entire career.

[Wahoo Redux]

You're taking his argument farther than he does, Wahoo. I've heard him say (and I just got the book, so I haven't read it yet) that he is not saying that college is a waste, just that the advantage it gets you (just after a bachelors degree) may not be worth the cost considering that (by his analysis) the advantage is mainly a social one.

Since he probably has two degrees post bachelors (or the equivalent), the signaling argument wouldn't really apply anyway, except maybe partially how he got into grad school. Though, in that other thread we have talked about how even undergrad can follow you for your entire career.

Fair enough.  I might read his book if I can find it at the library.  I'm mainly going off his interview. 

And I'm betting I'm correct that he's writing into the zeitgeist. 

[Ruralguy]

Sorry, I used the word "advantage" to apply to two different things: First there is the "leg up" social advantage of the signaling itself. Then this advantage buys you the financial advantage of increased salary (on average of course and  profession dependent).  It *might* be worth it in some cases, but he maintains that on average it would likely not be.

Its probably going to be most worth it for people who go on to some types of professional or graduate school.

[Ruralguy]

Admittedly though, the title is rather provocative, so if he is making subtler points, perhaps the title should be changed in future editions.

It does help sell the thing! Even it its not making its mark, it is making bucks.

[marshwiggle]

His first most egregious point, which some egregious thinkers-on-the-subject share, is that employment is the measure of college.  Meh.  I've always thought that, if we are just being mercenary about ed, is that college is a ticket to the middle class lifestyle: decorum, socialization, experience, knowledge (yeah, we learn things in college), exposure to wider ideas than just our home town and job, salary and employment---the whole deal. 

It doesn't matter what you or I think is "the measure" of post-secondary education; what matters is what the people choosing it (parents and prospective students) think it is. And there doesn't have to be any sort of consensus even then. What is important is that people can make an informed choice, so that they feel what they got is what they were expecting going in.

Perhaps it is my experience teaching both intro writing classes and then advanced writing classes, and my time as a writing center director, in which I sometimes see students I taught in their freshman years.  People improve in college.  They write better, they research better, they know what to look for better, etc.  In other words, they learn to think.  They are not perfected working bees, but they have learned. 

This is basically the point of signalling. If getting a degree indicates ability and motivation to improve, then that would also apply if they hadn't gone, but had done employer-specific training.

How many people on here have pointed out the signalling effect of how early students register?  Clearly all of the students taking the same course should have equal potential outcomes since they have the same instruction, but people who register early are, by definition, more pro-active and engaged.

Have they learned enough to justify the cost?  Maybe.  At least half the people who graduate college have some degree of satisfaction.  The other half seem to regret having to pay so much without obvious reward----sounds like human nature to me.

The people who thought what they learned was worth the cost got a reasonable education by their own standards, which is what matters. It makes no difference whether that was job-specific or not.

On the other hand, the people who weren't satisfied didn't get a reasonable education by their own standards, which is what matters. Again, it makes no difference whether that was job-specific or not.


Post-secondary education is not, and shouldn't be, monolithic. Some of it can be very job-specific, and some
can be completely non-job specific. The important thing is that people making choices have as clear an idea as possible of what their choices are so they can make a decision that suits them. The "buyers' remorse" graduates have indicates that those who have it didn't get what they were expecting. Reducing that discrepancy is improtant, whether that means changing offerings or changing recruitment.

[Wahoo Redux]

Admittedly though, the title is rather provocative, so if he is making subtler points, perhaps the title should be changed in future editions.

It does help sell the thing! Even it its not making its mark, it is making bucks.

The point is that it's expensive as hell, even for the vast bulk of the beneficiaries, and surely for the rest of us as parents and taxpayers.

Much if not most of this aggressive criticism of higher ed would disappear if we could lower the cost. 

It's not that Caplan et al. (including Polly) are wrong about the problems with education, but virtually every critique I see starts and ends with affordability and how the taxpayers are getting ripped off---right into the rage machine.   

Again, there is a good deal of literature illustrating the college is a social good beyond the necessity of finding employment.  And college churns out an proportionate amount of successful people even given the obviously correct arguments about social capital.

That's what frustrates me about these conversations, studies, and articles etc.: critique of college these days plays into the culture of rage we have experienced since the 1970s even if they make very good points.

Or the points we make, while good, seem exaggerated to me.  Still, Caplan has his ideas that we should listen to; the title of his book, what's going to bring in the bucks, is an assault. 

Again, college is good for us.  We want good college for anyone who wants to try it, we just don't want to have to pay for it and yet we expect it to solve social inequity at the same time.

[marshwiggle]

Again, college is good for us.  We want good college for anyone who wants to try it,

I think many would say instead "for anyone academically prepared for it". Letting in all kinds of people who aren't up to it is a waste of their time and money, and makes the whole system much more expensive.

we just don't want to have to pay for it and yet we expect it to solve social inequity at the same time.

How many people are there who don't do any post-secondary education because it's too expensive compared to the number that did post-secondary education but didn't think the cost was worth it? If the first group is bigger, then cost is the primary issue; if the second group is bigger, the primary issue is the mismatch between what people have been led to expect and what they received.