The Case Against Education Explained

The Case Against Education
Author:	Bryan Caplan
Audio Read By:	Allan Robertson
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Pub Date:	January 30, 2018
Pages:	417
Isbn:	978-0691174655

The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money^[1] is a book written by libertarian economist Bryan Caplan and published in 2018 by Princeton University Press. Drawing on the economic concept of job market signaling and research in educational psychology, the book argues that much of higher education is very inefficient and has only a small effect in improving human capital, contrary to the conventional consensus in labor economics.

Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to certify their intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity—attributes that are valued by employers. He ultimately estimates that approximately 80% of individuals' return to education is the result of signaling, with the remainder due to human capital accumulation.

Summary

Human capital model

The foundation of the drive to increase educational attainment across the board is the human capital model of education, which began with the research of Gary Becker.^[2] The model suggests that increasing educational attainment causes increased prosperity by endowing students with increased skills. As a consequence, subsidies to education are seen as a positive investment that increases economic growth and creates spillover effects by improving civic engagement, happiness, health, etc.

Caplan argues against the model due to several contradictions, though he does not dispute that higher educational attainment is strongly correlated with increased individual income. He highlights how most adults rarely remember much of what they were taught in school not related to their career besides English and math, and even the latter two are inadequate. He also analyzes the sheepskin effect, where the largest increases in income from higher educational attainment occur after attaining an academic degree, but not for those who dropped out of college despite usually having completed some courses. He finally criticizes educational inflation, the increasing educational requirements for occupations that do not require them, as indicating educational attainment is relative and not nearly as beneficial for society as portrayed.

Present value of learning, adjusted for forgetting

The simple human capital model tends to assume that knowledge is retained indefinitely, while a ubiquitous theme in educational interventions is that "fadeout" (i.e., forgetting) reliably occurs.^[3] To take a simple example, we may compute the present value of a marginal fact

F that increases a person's productivity by V as:$$PV(F)\; =\; \backslash int\_^e^Vdt\; =$$where r is the discount rate used to compute the present value. If V is $100 and r is 5%, then the present value of learning F is $2,000. But this is at odds with the concept of fadeout. To correct for this, assume that the probability density function for retaining F follows an exponential distribution—with the corresponding survival function S(t) = e ^{-λ} . Then the present value of learning F , accounting for fadeout, is given by:$$PV(F)\; =\; \backslash int\_^e^S(t)Vdt\; =\; \backslash int\_^e^Vdt\; =$$Since the expected value of an exponential distribution is λ ^{-1} , we may tune this parameter based on assumptions about how long F is retained. Below is a table showing what the present value is based on and the expected retention time of the fact:

Present Value of Learning F , with Fadeout!3 Months!6 Months!1 Year!2 Years!3 Years!5 Years!10 Years

$24.69

$48.78

$95.24

$181.82

$260.87

$400.00

$666.67

Regardless of the retention time assumption, the present value of learning F is significantly reduced.

Signaling model

The main alternative to the human capital model of education is the signaling model of education. The idea of job market signaling through educational attainment goes back to the work of Michael Spence.^[4] The model Spence developed suggested that, even if a student did not gain any skills through an educational program, the program can still be useful so long as the signal from completing the program is correlated with traits that predict job performance.

Throughout the book, Caplan details a series of observations that suggest a significant role for signaling in the return to education:

• Intelligence^{[5] [6] [7]} and conscientiousness^[8] are known predictors of educational and occupational success, and are relatively stable^{[9] [10]} throughout a person's life
• International estimates of the effect of an additional year of education on national income are much lower than those estimating the impact of an additional year of education on personal income^[11] (p. 114-118)
• Many students forget material over the summer and after the end of a class (p. 39-40)
  • Adults tend to forget much of the information they learned in school (p. 39-50). This builds on Caplan's earlier book The Myth of the Rational Voter.^[12]
• Students look to take courses that offer easy As, instead of more difficult courses
• The sheepskin effect seems to be fairly large (p. 97-102)
• Transfer of learning to other disciplines appears to be low or nonexistent (p. 50-59)

Given the above signs of signaling, Caplan argues in ch. 5–6 that the selfish return to education is greater than the social return to education, suggesting that greater educational attainment creates a negative externality (p. 198). In other words, status is zero-sum; skill is not (p. 229).

Cost-benefit analysis of going to college

For many students, Caplan argues that most of the negative social return to pursuing further education comes from the incursion of student debt and lost employment opportunities for students who are unlikely to complete college (p. 210-211, ch. 8). He suggests that these students would be better served by vocational education.

Policy recommendations

Caplan advocates two major policy responses to the problem of signaling in education:

1. Educational austerity
2. Increased vocational education

The first recommendation is that government needs to sharply cut education funding, since public education spending in the United States across all levels tops $1 trillion annually.^[13] The second recommendation is to encourage greater vocational education, because students who are unlikely to succeed in college should develop practical skills to function in the labor market. Caplan argues for an increased emphasis on vocational education that is similar in nature to the systems in Germany^[14] and Switzerland.^{[15] [16]}

Reviews

Positive

• Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias^[17]
• Naomi Schaefer Riley in The Wall Street Journal^[18]
• Gene Epstein in City Journal^[19]

Mixed

• Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg Opinion^[20]
  • "I'm not sure he's right, especially about education being almost entirely for the purpose of signaling, but goodness does he make a strong case. Agree with him or not, you'll never look at the schools and colleges in quite the same way."
• Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution^[21]
• Ilya Somin at Reason^[22]

Negative

• Sarah Carr in The Washington Post^[23]
• Sean Illing at Vox^[24]
• Joshua Kim at Inside Higher Ed^[25]

See also

• Big Five personality traits
• Credential inflation
  • Grade inflation
• Education economics
• Intelligence
• Labor economics

Further reading

• Becker, Gary S. (1964). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. .
• Bolton, Patrick; Dewatripont, Mathias (2005). Contract Theory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 99–127. .
• Cahuc, Pierre; Carcillo, Stéphane; Zylberberg, André (2014). Labor Economics (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 191–245. .
• Bahrick, Harry P.; Hall, Lynda K. (1991). "Lifetime Maintenance of High School Mathematics Content". Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 120 (1): 20–33.

External links

• Noah Blaylock's Study Guide to The Case Against Education

Notes and References

1. Book: Caplan, Bryan. The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press. 2018. 978-0691174655. Princeton, NJ.
2. Becker. Gary S.. 1962. Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis. Journal of Political Economy. 70. 5. 9–49. 0022-3808. 1829103. 10.1086/258724. 153979487.
3. Cascio. Elizabeth U. Staiger. Douglas O. 2012. Knowledge, Tests, and Fadeout in Educational Interventions. NBER Working Paper No. 18038. 10.3386/w18038 . 117717136 . free.
4. Spence. Michael. 1973. Job Market Signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 87. 3. 355–374. 10.2307/1882010. 0033-5533. 1882010.
5. Ree. Malcolm James. Earles. James A.. 1992. Intelligence Is the Best Predictor of Job Performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 1. 3. 86–89. 0963-7214. 20182140. 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10768746. 145352062.
6. Gottfredson. Linda S.. January 1, 1997. Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life. Intelligence. Special Issue Intelligence and Social Policy. 24. 1. 79–132. 10.1016/S0160-2896(97)90014-3. 0160-2896. 10.1.1.535.4596.
7. Deary. Ian J.. Strand. Steve. Smith. Pauline. Fernandes. Cres. January 1, 2007. Intelligence and educational achievement. Intelligence. 35. 1. 13–21. 10.1016/j.intell.2006.02.001. 0160-2896.
8. Barrick. Murray R.. Mount. Michael K.. 1991. The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Personnel Psychology. en. 44. 1. 1–26. 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x. 144689146 . 1744-6570.
9. Specht. Jule. Egloff. Boris. Schmukle. Stefan C.. 2011. Stability and change of personality across the life course: the impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 101. 4. 862–882. 10.1037/a0024950. 1939-1315. 21859226.
10. Plomin. Robert. 2012. Genetics: How intelligence changes with age. Nature. en. 482. 7384. 165–166. 10.1038/482165a. 22318596. 1476-4687. 2012Natur.482..165P. 4334163. free.
11. Fuente. Angel de la. Doménech. Rafael. 2006. Human Capital in Growth Regressions: How Much Difference Does Data Quality Make?. Journal of the European Economic Association. en. 4. 1. 1–36. 10.1162/jeea.2006.4.1.1. 11547865. 1542-4774. 2072/1995. free.
12. Book: Caplan, Bryan. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton University Press. 2008. 9780691138732. Princeton, NJ.
13. Book: Digest of Education Statistics, 2017. Snyder. Thomas D.. de Brey. Cristobal. Dillow. Sally A.. National Center for Education Statistics. 2017. 13.
14. Web site: Why Germany Is So Much Better at Training Its Workers. Jacoby. Tamar. October 16, 2014. The Atlantic. en-US. August 14, 2019.
15. Who Needs College? The Swiss Opt for Vocational School. Bachmann. Helena. Time. August 14, 2019. en-US. 0040-781X.
16. Web site: The case against education: A long-read Q&A with Bryan Caplan. Pethokoukis. James. March 16, 2018. AEI. en-US. August 15, 2019.
17. Web site: Overcoming Bias : Read The Case Against Education. Hanson. Robin. January 18, 2018. www.overcomingbias.com. August 14, 2019.
18. Web site: Review: Deciding Against the Paper Chase. Riley. Naomi Schaefer. January 15, 2018. WSJ. en-US. August 14, 2019.
19. Web site: Compulsory Futility. Epstein. Gene. October 19, 2018. City Journal.
20. Web site: My 15 Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018. Carter. Stephen L.. December 20, 2018. Bloomberg Opinion.
21. Web site: My Conversation with Bryan Caplan. Cowen. Tyler. May 9, 2018. Marginal Revolution. en-US. August 14, 2019.
22. Web site: Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education. Somin. Ilya. March 24, 2018. Reason.com. en-US. August 15, 2019.
23. News: Is education a waste of time and money?. Carr. Sarah. February 16, 2018. The Washington Post.
24. Web site: Why this economist thinks public education is mostly pointless. Illing. Sean. February 16, 2018. Vox. August 14, 2019.
25. Web site: The Case Against 'The Case Against Education' Inside Higher Ed. Kim. Joshua. October 18, 2018. Inside Higher Ed. en. August 14, 2019.