Marginalism and the Higher Ed Paradox
22nd June 2012
My hypothesis is that it is precisely the dumbing down of U.S. education over the last decades that explains the increase in willingness to pay for education. The mechanism is diminishing marginal returns to education.
Typical graduate business school education has indeed become less rigorous over time, as has typical college education. But typical high school education has declined in quality just as much. As a result, the human capital difference between a college and high-school graduate has increased, because the first increments of education are more valuable on the job market than the later ones. It used to be that everybody could read and understand something like Orwell’s Animal Farm, but the typical college graduates could also understand Milton or Spencer. Now, nobody grasps Milton but only the college grads can process Animal Farm, and for employers the See Spot Run–>Animal Farm jump is more valuable than the Animal Farm–>Milton jump.
It is as I have long said — companies are requiring college degrees for positions that don’t really require a college education because that’s the only way they can guarantee that applicants will have what used to be considered a high school education.
June 22nd, 2012 at 14:06
Back in the old days, an employer could administer an intelligence test to weed out the idiots, but nowadays that would get you hauled into court for illegal racial discrimination, and the cost of your legal defense would bankrupt your business. Thus the shift to a reliance on paper credentials issued by institutions of hired “education.”
June 22nd, 2012 at 17:47
More whining and hand-wringing from the right, weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth over the passing of the Good Old Days when men were men and peasants knew their place.