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Time to end the academic arms race

Lafayette

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From the Economist, Time to end the academic arms race - excerpt:


THERE are plenty of good reasons for a young person to choose to go to university: intellectual growth, career opportunities, having fun. Around half of school-leavers in the rich world now do so, and the share is rising in poorer countries, too.


Governments are keen on higher education, seeing it as a means to boost social mobility and economic growth. Almost all subsidise tuition—in America, to the tune of $200bn a year. But they tend to overestimate the benefits and ignore the costs of expanding university education (see article). Often, public money just feeds the arms race for qualifications.

Spending on universities is usually justified by the “graduate premium”—the increase in earnings that graduates enjoy over non-graduates. These individual gains, the thinking goes, add up to an economic boost for society as a whole. But the graduate premium is a flawed unit of reckoning. Part of the usefulness of a degree is that it gives a graduate jobseeker an advantage at the expense of non-graduates. It is also a signal to employers of general qualities, such as intelligence and diligence, that someone already has in order to get into a university.

Some professions require qualifications. But a degree is not always the best measure of the skills and knowledge needed for a job. With degrees so common, recruiters are using them as a crude way to screen applicants. Non-graduates are thus increasingly locked out of decent work.


I could not agree more, even though about 55% of Americans do not have a post-secondary degree of any kind. Meaning that there are five-types; the first being "vocational" and the others "Associate", "Bachelors", "Masters" and "Doctorate".

But first you need to get out of high-school.

How much of our kids could do very well indeed with a Vocation-level degree? A great many I should think. Then, let's make sure they can get that degree for nuthin' or next-to-nuthin'*. (That was proposed by both Bernie and Hillary, a Great Idea to which American voters in 2017 mindlessly gave the Index Finger.)

THAT is the sort of investment that will allow more Americans steady-jobs, and reduce our awesome percentage of the population living below the Poverty Threshold (about 46 million men, women and children).

*The European Union gets it right: By sending children to public post-secondary schooling where annual tuition costs less than $1K a year!
 
Oupps - Infographic that goes with above post:
20180203_LDC694.png
 
From the Economist, Time to end the academic arms race - excerpt:




I could not agree more, even though about 55% of Americans do not have a post-secondary degree of any kind. Meaning that there are five-types; the first being "vocational" and the others "Associate", "Bachelors", "Masters" and "Doctorate".

But first you need to get out of high-school.

How much of our kids could do very well indeed with a Vocation-level degree? A great many I should think. Then, let's make sure they can get that degree for nuthin' or next-to-nuthin'*. (That was proposed by both Bernie and Hillary, a Great Idea to which American voters in 2017 mindlessly gave the Index Finger.)

THAT is the sort of investment that will allow more Americans steady-jobs, and reduce our awesome percentage of the population living below the Poverty Threshold (about 46 million men, women and children).

*The European Union gets it right: By sending children to public post-secondary schooling where annual tuition costs less than $1K a year!

But in many countries there, 50% of income goes to taxes (Austria has that, even for people making only 80K). Granted, you get waht you pay for, high quality of life, education, healthcare

Our country is full of people who think taxation is theft and have been brainwashed into thinking they should pay no taxes and that taxes are evil. Not realizing all they get from that.
 
But in many countries there, 50% of income goes to taxes (Austria has that, even for people making only 80K). Granted, you get waht you pay for, high quality of life, education, healthcare

Our country is full of people who think taxation is theft and have been brainwashed into thinking they should pay no taxes and that taxes are evil. Not realizing all they get from that.

If any "citizen" of a country is too dumb to understand a country's expenditures, then they deserve to get screwed.

Having said that:
2017_pres_budget_disc_spending_pie_large.png


Any country that is spending THAT AMOUNT of money on just Defense (more than half!) needs to have its Collective Head examined for dementia.

I cannot speak for Americans living elsewhere than Europe, but the total number of us resident abroad is estimated at 9-million. There are close to 650,000 Americans living in Europe (about 100K in France alone, see the world estimate by country here) - and I'll bet most are not going back. Why?

Because they have discovered eyes-wide-open the benefits of a National Healthcare System and nearly-free Tertiary Education in European Social Democracies*.

*Link to definition of Social Democracy.
 
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