The Case Against ‘The Case Against Education’
“Libertarian economist Bryan Caplan didn’t strive for subtlety when he titled his new book The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. As I wrote in a Remarks column in the print edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, the George Mason University professor makes a strong case that most of what people learn in high school and college is unnecessary and quickly forgotten. He says that only about a fifth of the value of an education is the increase in human capital. The rest is ‘signaling’—the degree itself puts you in line ahead of non-graduates, even if you learned nothing useful, because it tells potential employers that you’re reasonably smart, reasonably determined to complete what you started, and reasonably good at fitting in. Signaling is a zero-sum game: possibly useful for the individual who gets ahead, but wasteful for society.”