Sunday Posts

There is not much we agree upon these days, except that more and more people should go to college. This has become the self-evident truth of the late Twentieth century, and achieved the status of a divine revealation in the twentyfirst. Contrarian views, voiced from time to time by a few elitist conservatives, who believe college, along with the privileges to govern in perpetuity, should be preserved for a small group of people, look dated and out of place even among the political right. Countries speak of knowledge economy and equate it to the size of college-educated population. Technologists speak of automation and artificial intelligence and see college education essential for producing, consuming and living in the world they wish to make. Economists speak of productivity and equate it to the level of education. Everyone everywhere seems to think more college would mean more progress and well-being. This, without any real evidence! College, historically, has been a system of ...

The work and careers are changing. As most process-based jobs get automated, it seems the winners will be those with greater intellectual skills. In the meantime, the salary premium for college graduates have risen dramatically - mainly as a result of non-graduates falling precipitously. This is taken as evidence of centrality of college education: Everyone should be able to go to college, has become the political mantra. This is good for colleges themselves and hence, they have promoted the idea. And, as the educated usually takes upon themselves the role of society's critic-in-chief, the conclusion has not really be questioned. However, while the poor countries followed the cue and started expansion of college education - and, because the state does not have money, this means a poorer public education and enormous expansion of terribly bad private education - it is worth looking at the phenomena closely and exploring its wisdom. At one level, work has become more comple...