U.S. Education Is Not The Real Problem

January 27, 2011

by Cynthia
lifted from a comment

President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union Address that we can educate our way back into prosperity. This is probably true if you assume that the more educated you are, the more money you make. But this assumption is wrong.

Making money in America has little to do with how well educated you are. It mostly has to do with how well connected you are, including how good you are at ripping people off and getting away with it. Do a quick background check on all the people that have struck it rich in our rent-seeking society and you’ll have little doubt that I am wrong on this.

I suppose that if we return to a time when our society placed more value on making productive things like cars and other industrial products than on making non-productive things like credit default swaps and other financial products, we’ll see more people striking it rich by being well educated and highly skilled at doing productive work rather than by being well connected and highly skilled at doing unproductive work, particularly unproductive work that’s geared towards ripping people off.

But I don’t see any of this happening until we face up to the fact that economic power is shifting to China not because our workers are less skilled and less educated than their Chinese counterparts, but because our well-connected, rip-off artists from the FIRE economy (i.e., Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) are better than their Chinese counterparts at turning their own country into a safe haven for rent-seeking parasites.

Posted by b on January 27, 2011 at 18:54 UTC | Permalink

Comments

I disagree with this.
First, there is a huge difference between education and degrees. You can be degreed and not be educated and you can be educated but w/o any degrees. Just as an example, Bush jr. was degreed, but he was hardly educated. I suspect that Obama was using the terms interchangebly, but that is Obama and not me. To me education is a state of mind; it is about curiousity; it is about asking the why question.
Second, There is evidence to support the hypothesis that the more degreed you are the more money you will make. Check out this link from the Census bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032010/perinc/new04_001.htm
Those with a HS degree only made 30,627 in 2009. Those with an AA made 39,771, and those with a BA 56,665. an advanced degree MA or PhD earns you the best income with the former giving you 73,738 and the latter 103,054.
It could be that connections are the ones that improve your earning potential, but I have yet to see data that supports this. Cynthis could well be right, but she has no data to support what she says.
I do not knoe about other countries, but earning a degree in the US is still one of the BEST methods to improve your earning potential. Not only that, earning higher and higher degrees tends to lessen your work load in the long term.

Posted by: ndahi | Jan 27 2011 19:43 utc | 1

Good post Cynthia… ndahi, one factor I doubt the census fools figure into their equation is those who make money on the gray/black markets. I’ve known some odd self-made humans who chose a different route to success and they’ve done quite well for themselves. Not to mention the ever-growing need for hired gun thugs to ‘protect’ empire’s minions overseas.
The blue-collar jobs of future America are already here. Just takes lookin’ a bit deeper down the rabbit hole 😉
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 27 2011 21:06 utc | 2

Great post, Cynthia. This portion of the president’s speech caught my attention:

And so we must defeat determined enemies, wherever they are, and build coalitions that cut across lines of region and race and religion. And America’s moral example must always shine for all who yearn for freedom and justice and dignity. And because we’ve begun this work, tonight we can say that American leadership has been renewed and America’s standing has been restored.

“…tonight we can say that American leadership has been renewed and America’s standing has been restored.”
No. No way, nohow.
This little pep talk of his was a crafty piece of rhetoric, built like a Swiss watch; but after Wikileaks, and Hersh’s report, and all the evidence b has presented recently, there has been no restoration of America’s standing. The very idea of a restoration is pure bunk. The State of the Union message always contains one colossal lie. And Obama was very careful to slip it in, where it was least likely to be noticed.
And the effect of republicans and democrats sitting together in newfound comeraderie, because of the shooting of Rep. Giffords, represents a layer of hypocrisy so thick, it practically qualifies as a tectonic plate. Who is so callow as to be fooled by this? But Obama built this glow of unity into a whole presentation, filled with the overly sugared suggestion of American decency that triumphs over the total history of American crimes.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 27 2011 22:43 utc | 3

just about the only people who aren’t unemployed in this recession are college-educated workers. That’s supported by the empirical evidence.
As to why this is the case is interesting. It may have less to do with skills and more with networking and family connections.that is, the results are not based on meritocracy, but elite fraternity and nepotism.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 28 2011 3:45 utc | 4

Don’t necessarily disagree with this, but the fire under the surface is probably the stupid assertion by the Preacher in Chief that education = prosperity. As if to neglect the obvious hinge point, educated in what? Certainly my own MFA has had absolutely zero factor in my economic success or failure (mostly failure). Simply put, the notion of higher education = prosperity has more (if not everything) to do with whatever that education’s proximity is to money making potential than anything – and is where connections supersede education/knowledge every time in a society obsessed with money, and is likely the primary source of Cynthia’s frustration.
Personally, it only took about 30 seconds of watching the PiC’s SOTU speech before I was reduced to a foaming at the mouth spiting rage, and the wife turned it off.
At this point the country is so far off the charts with madness, I find it increasingly hard to even bother with a diagnosis.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 28 2011 5:14 utc | 5

I’m old enough to remember when we used to consider ‘business major’ students just slightly above ‘communications major’ students with athletic scholarships. More education means more indoctrination in the corporate cult. And as with most cults, the more hazing and blood sacrifices you can stomach, the higher you get. The higher you get on the pyramid, the more money that rains on your head.
I also remember Robert Reich cheerleading the idea that we’d all be information workers by now, no need for manufacturing jobs.
There are a lot of people with self-motivation and are always trying to improve themselves. There are far more people who want to leave a job after eight hours (ha!) and get on with their day. Whatever else the Tea Party people may be, they are not a pool of choice employees, which may be their only redeeming feature. Obama’s hectoring will not change many career paths.

Posted by: Biklett | Jan 28 2011 7:55 utc | 6

Yes a degree will get you a better paid job, however if you look at all the “leaders” who were involved in financial crisis like Lehman, RBS, Enron, you get my point, none and I mean none had any economics qualification or understanding of basics of economics. What they were good at was swindling.

Posted by: hans | Jan 28 2011 12:30 utc | 7

Interesting comments!
Slothrop, I think you nailed it! Connections really help move business along… and you don’t always need college to find said connections, though I imagine it’s one of the best places to look.
For knuckleheads like me, elite resorts seem to work just as well – I’ve been lucky to be paid (rather than to pay) for the privilege of rubbing elbows with folks who might further my ‘career’. What I seemed to have screwed-up, is that I don’t have any ‘skills’ anyone with cash wants to pay for. Just my luck to be born without a sideshow phallus that might have ‘earned’ me a few consolation prizes from wealthy women clients… that is how a few dudes I’ve known managed to ‘escape’ poverty. Personally, after seeing what those freaks have had to endure, I prefer poverty 😉 I’ve don’t need to eat Viagra like Chicklets to keep myself, um, going…
I’ve had (and still have) a negative outlook about the direction America is been traveling; I think we’re pretty much living in a fascist country. I’ve given-up hope of much changing anytime soon… too many of my fellow countrymen can’t see how screwed we are, and even if they did, they wouldn’t want to miss their television programs to change any of it, and hence it won’t change. Just keeps getting uglier and the rats are feeding on one another, while the elite laugh, and laugh, and steal more of our money and freedom.
I don’t have much hope when blogs like this are peopled by an international cast (as opposed to all the American goofs who need to read this sort of information) and a hit counter that sees so few visitors… Meanwhile, the entertainment blogs full of crap, are recording American visitors by the millions. WTF?
In closing, I want to thank everyone who drinks at the bar for bringing so many individual viewpoints to share with me (I know, you’re not only sharing with me). I think most Americans become ‘educated’ like this traveling overseas, but I’ve not yet had the opportunity. I imagine a long train trip or a few drinks in a local pub in Europe would be a lot like hanging out here, at least that’s what I like to think. I’m sure Europe is peopled with as many idiots as over here. But a guy can dream can’t he?
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 28 2011 14:01 utc | 8

(I couldn’t bring myself to watch or read the Obiman speech.)
Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants. All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
– R. Vedder in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/why-did-17-million-students-go-to-college/27634
Higher education does afford better paying jobs, be it through the knowledge/skills acquired, the official certification as a ‘legit’ member of society (has a degree / does not), or social, economic status and the contacts, network, someone mentioned nepotism.. (But do read the link.)
Shanice, 25, no degree, one child, and Allison, 25, no child, degreed, be it from State college or some place more lofty, cannot apply for the same jobs. It is called social stratification. (That is changing btw.)
1) The ‘knowledge economy’ or ‘revolution’ never was and never will be. The idea was built on old roots with us since forever, learning is precious and either brings in a return to society (e.g. inventor, innovator, fantastic leader, etc.) or fits ppl for demanding, necessary jobs in complex societies, e.g. Judge, SEC official, vetting drug research, coordinating defense response, etc.
The traditional view was shunted onto the FIRE economy (to echo Cynthia) where people with ‘brain power’ – education and dedication to their expertise – would just sit behind computers and go to meetings and ..do exactly what? What they did and do was pull high salaries, bonuses, by skimming off the top – i.e. whatever real-life economy still is chugging. (Or casino stock market shenanigans, another story.) I mean that literally.
“Genuine” high level jobs for the hyper-educated are few and far between, and have become corrupted by the general Zeitgeist, where a quick buck trumps common sense, the rule of law, morality, and longer term perspectives. The dedicated, honest, quit or hang on as they have no other choice…
2) Educational institutions perceived the advantage they could gain, in cahoots with the finance sector (financial bodies, in part tied to the State), to both command bloated fees for useless and shoddy education, and throw young ppl into debt servitude, buy their future so to speak. A double scam: education will garner you a higher revenue, but should you succeed, your future is mortgaged. Student debt in the US is a gigantic problem that will not end well. It is comparable to sub-prime lending in its social impact, worse even maybe.
There are other problems as well but post is too long.

Posted by: Noirette | Jan 28 2011 17:21 utc | 9

At this point the country is so far off the charts with madness, I find it increasingly hard to even bother with a diagnosis.
This…
Our quaint little North West college town is saturated w/degrees, I have friends w/Master’s degree’s working shit jobs, and many who have left our small-ish community to seek employment elsewhere in big cities only to come back home and settle for shit jobs. I read a (not online)article not long ago, that said, in effect, what has happened here is happening all across the country in that the nation is saturated in educated people; we keep churning our degrees with no industry growth, and no jobs.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2011 18:24 utc | 10

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2011 19:15 utc | 11

I understand the cynicism of the statement “It mostly has to do with how well connected you are, including how good you are at ripping people off and getting away with it”, but I think that this is a overly simple way to look at this situation. Sure the guys who make headlines are the crooks, or the presidents of insurance companies but in the grand scheme of building or maintaining a middle class this group does not represent the majority.
I got a http://www.uscranton.com/online-educational-administration.asp “> Masters of Administration so that I would be qualified to move into a leadership role in school systems, or maybe at some point work for a fortune 500 in their training department. Education depending on the degree obtained can still be the passport to a number of careers. You are not going to teach without a BA, you are not going to work as a chemist for Johnson & Johnson without a high level education, you are not going to design bridges or buildings without the proper education either. These are not fields in which companies are ever going to let some jerk be “on the job trained” because of their connections. If you are born without money or big time connections the easiest path to the middle classin this country is still through gaining an education.
One last thing. The rate of violent crimes goes down the more people in a community are educated. Education is a silver bullet to reducing poverty, and crime.

Posted by: Brett | Feb 3 2011 22:19 utc | 12

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