Sorry G4N, I wasn't around for the week, but wanted to reply to your thoughtful post:
There are ways to decipher causality. That's what researchers spend their lives trying to do. The general public doesn't realize how complicated it can be, so they can be fooled.
I don't want to go too deeply down a statistical rabbit hole, but I'm willing to see the supporting evidence.
Being raised in a family with successful parents can give several kinds of advantages. Only one of which is the ability to pay for college. For example, there could be inherited abilities and traits that make you more likely to succeed. And your parents might teach you to be responsible, and set a good example.
I'm in reasonable agreement here, but I'm not ready to give-up the tie that education generally increases one's earning power.
The student loan scammers just took one variable -- the college degree -- and convinced people that is the key to success. If the college degree is the only important factor, then it's worth going into debt. Except it obviously is not the only important factor. And a college degree will not make you successful if it's in art history (my first degree).
I couldn't agree more. Higher education is a product one is purchasing, and one needs to determine whether a given product is suitable for their specific end purpose.
I came from an economically modest environment, and we and most of the neighborhood were European immigrant stock. With only rare exception, the crowd I grew-up with never had the luxury of higher education strictly for education's sake; higher education was seen as an economic decision based upon its economic pay-off.
Consequently, those of us that went on to universities studied engineering, accountancy, law, nursing, finance, or medicine; the things that made money. No one I knew took psych, art, history, literature, etc. Though I knew a number of guys did the economics and poli-sci thing to prep for law school, but law was always the end goal.
Some people believe in education for its own sake. You take courses in the arts and humanities, literature and history, etc. You become a better, wiser, person. That was sort of how I approached my undergraduate degree. I had no practical ideas about how to survive. I didn't realize I could have found all that information I learned in my classes at the public library, for free. (And now days you can find it online).
Well I'm torn on your paragraph here, because I very much believe in the intrinsic value of a good liberal undergrad education and in being an educated person.
A good undergrad program at a good school forces and directs one to get the full breadth and depth of a liberal education, even when one doesn't know exactly what specific topics & items are - or are not - important in civilization's immense body of knowledge. Plus you also get the resources of the instructor & department, as well as networking opportunities, clubs, and associations.
But an education of this type needs to be approached in context. Firstly it needs to be a good school & program, and secondly it needs to fit the context of one's personal needs in life. If you're not a trust fund baby or inheriting a thriving business, you need to follow it with a professional degree in order to make a living. Either that, or pick a more practical undergrad degree that will make you some money.
But quite honestly, I think the ideal educational path, if one has the time and finances, is a solid broad & deep liberal undergrad from a good undergrad program, followed by a a professional money-making grad degree from the best program you can get into. That combination can be a very effective life tool.
College has become a scam, unless you learn practical skills. In which case it's more like a trade school or professional school.
I still think good liberal undergrad programs from good schools are worth the effort, but if you need to eventually work for a living, you gotta' follow them with a money-making professional degree. The problem I see with a liberal undergrad, or most any degree for that matter, is there's far too many mediocre and poor schools. It's a joke to see some of the B.S. institutions calling themselves,
"university". I do very much see those degrees as rip-offs, or at the least very low value.
Now as an example of a good undergrad liberal education, I use the University of Chicago's undergrad core curriculum as my gold standard. It's been relaxed in the last decade or so from the original Hutchinson plan, but it's still very good and one can still follow the Hutchinson plan or use the Great Books option if they chose. I swear I've never met anyone that did a U of C undergrad, that wasn't amazingly well educated in both breadth and depth!
