Scan barcode
Reviews
The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money by Bryan Caplan
msmurph's review
4.0
4 stars for taking an unapologetically radical stance and testing my own beliefs about the education system. Caplan uses extensive cuts of data to back up his opinion that education is more about signaling and less absolute skill building. I found myself agreeing with most of his fundamental stances but still grasping at my own counters to his overall glum outlook. I only recommend this book for those looking to do a deep dive on the education system with data and economics.
lassebirk's review
5.0
Caplan estimates that the value of college education is 80% signalling of pre-existing traits: Intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. Remaining 20% are actual skills learned.
"Learning how to learn" is a fantasy according to research. People are generally not able to apply principles learned from one problem to a new type of problem.
Caplan is skeptical of the revolution of online education because while it has the best content and the best teachers, you lose out on signalling conformity when you get an online degree instead of a normal degree. But perhaps it's just a matter of time for this to slowly change such that online education becomes the conformist thing to do.
Based on US numbers, Caplan says that most people should try to finish high school both for selfish reasons, while only good/excellent students should start college for selfish reasons. Master's degrees should only be attempted if "the stars align". For social reasons, Caplan estimates that even high school is a bad investment for everyone.
Praising education because it exposes people to high culture and historical understanding overlooks that very few people remember what they were forced to learn in school. Looking at the amount of high culture consumed as a whole, school has done a terrible job at helping high culture.
"Learning how to learn" is a fantasy according to research. People are generally not able to apply principles learned from one problem to a new type of problem.
Caplan is skeptical of the revolution of online education because while it has the best content and the best teachers, you lose out on signalling conformity when you get an online degree instead of a normal degree. But perhaps it's just a matter of time for this to slowly change such that online education becomes the conformist thing to do.
Based on US numbers, Caplan says that most people should try to finish high school both for selfish reasons, while only good/excellent students should start college for selfish reasons. Master's degrees should only be attempted if "the stars align". For social reasons, Caplan estimates that even high school is a bad investment for everyone.
Praising education because it exposes people to high culture and historical understanding overlooks that very few people remember what they were forced to learn in school. Looking at the amount of high culture consumed as a whole, school has done a terrible job at helping high culture.
rebleejen's review
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Ngl, my eyes glazed over a bit in the middle chapters, but I reckon this book is about as accessible as you can make a book about economics to the layperson. The main problem is that now I know more about this subject than I wanted to, and I've decided to stop having opinions on education policy because it's too depressing.
gvenezia's review
5.0
I may amend my rating after I've read more books on education policy. And I do think Caplan (like most libertarians) really needs to work on his framing and marketability to non-libertarians.
But for now, I'm basing my rating on how many times I screamed out loud at just how abominable the education system seems at durably transferring knowledge and critical thinking skills to students.
I was already sympathetic to the argument that America's education system is mostly signaling, but the figures and arguments for aspects like the "sheepskin effect"—where there's a large income premium added right at the point where someone receives a diploma (which used to be on sheepskin)—countered the measured skepticism I had been holding prior to this book.
But for now, I'm basing my rating on how many times I screamed out loud at just how abominable the education system seems at durably transferring knowledge and critical thinking skills to students.
I was already sympathetic to the argument that America's education system is mostly signaling, but the figures and arguments for aspects like the "sheepskin effect"—where there's a large income premium added right at the point where someone receives a diploma (which used to be on sheepskin)—countered the measured skepticism I had been holding prior to this book.
lpm100's review
3.0
3.0 out of 5 stars Flight of ideas
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
The flight of ideas in this book is just way too much. (And if I had paid attention and noted that this was on the Princeton label of books rather than something like the Basic Books imprint, I could have known that this would not have been a good read.)
We all know that the overwhelming majority of college prep education doesn't pay for itself, and maybe the best way to do this would have been to just calculate in a more detailed and accurate way what everybody has already (mis)calculated for their personal situation.. To wit: Taking a person's total earnings during their lifetime and subtracting out for years of foregone income because of education and then subtracting out the price of education and then dividing that amount by the total number of working years to get the earnings per year.
And then Caplan could tell us whether or not education was a good return on investment. Maybe he could have also done this for several different types of degree. (Obviously Engineering will be some positive return on investment, but English and Sociology will be a net negative return on investment. How much of each?)
A way to analogize this book to books that are more practical about this topic: I would say that this book is the equivalent of taking a class that talks about the participation of d orbitals in reactions (without a single practical/ real life example) as opposed to some other books which will show you simple hydrolysis equations, and then give you the method to actually carry out these reactions in the lab if needs be.
For the benefit of my kids, I'm much more interested in WHAT things paid to study at school and what things to avoid than I am the theory / background of why that may happen to be. In other words, limited prescriptive rather than verbosely descriptive. If this book had been what I was interested in, it might have read more like a list of boiling/ melting points with minimal discussion.
To be honest, an explanation of why college is such a popular choice has been summed up in less than one paragraph several decades ago by Eric Hoffer. "Where all learned men are clergymen, the church is unassailable. Where all learned men are bureaucrats or where education gives a man an acknowledged superior status, the prevailing order is likely to be free from movements of protest." So, since education is the bread and butter of men of words, then of course they are going to do a good job selling it to the masses. And the masses will want it and not know why.
There was some limited discussion of vocational education, but it was only one page. (As a percentage of the length of this book, it was too little.)
Another (more correct) way to understand why vocational education is on the defensive would be to note that: 1. It requires understanding what are current market conditions for working. Since many educators have not filled out a job application in anywhere between 5 and 30 years, they won't have timely information. 2. Vocational training does not allow "men of words" to have a topic that they can use as an "influence fulcrum."
If this book had been about the actual returns on education, none of that philosophical discussion would have been necessary. A straightforward comparison of the returns on several actual educational courses would have made the point.
There are other books out there that I would recommend in preference to this one. The first would be The Higher Education Bubble (Encounter Broadside) And the second would be: " The End Is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure
It was a good, long, hard slog to get through this book. And I actually even read a couple of books in between this in order to break up this one.
There were a few neat little factoids (such as education does not change one's political affiliation or that religion and education are not related). Also, Caplan's tried-and-true (Talmudic) technique of inventing mythical characters to discuss and answer questions that readers might have was good.
It was enough to take it up one star, but it was not enough to save the book.
Verdict: Not recommended.
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
The flight of ideas in this book is just way too much. (And if I had paid attention and noted that this was on the Princeton label of books rather than something like the Basic Books imprint, I could have known that this would not have been a good read.)
We all know that the overwhelming majority of college prep education doesn't pay for itself, and maybe the best way to do this would have been to just calculate in a more detailed and accurate way what everybody has already (mis)calculated for their personal situation.. To wit: Taking a person's total earnings during their lifetime and subtracting out for years of foregone income because of education and then subtracting out the price of education and then dividing that amount by the total number of working years to get the earnings per year.
And then Caplan could tell us whether or not education was a good return on investment. Maybe he could have also done this for several different types of degree. (Obviously Engineering will be some positive return on investment, but English and Sociology will be a net negative return on investment. How much of each?)
A way to analogize this book to books that are more practical about this topic: I would say that this book is the equivalent of taking a class that talks about the participation of d orbitals in reactions (without a single practical/ real life example) as opposed to some other books which will show you simple hydrolysis equations, and then give you the method to actually carry out these reactions in the lab if needs be.
For the benefit of my kids, I'm much more interested in WHAT things paid to study at school and what things to avoid than I am the theory / background of why that may happen to be. In other words, limited prescriptive rather than verbosely descriptive. If this book had been what I was interested in, it might have read more like a list of boiling/ melting points with minimal discussion.
To be honest, an explanation of why college is such a popular choice has been summed up in less than one paragraph several decades ago by Eric Hoffer. "Where all learned men are clergymen, the church is unassailable. Where all learned men are bureaucrats or where education gives a man an acknowledged superior status, the prevailing order is likely to be free from movements of protest." So, since education is the bread and butter of men of words, then of course they are going to do a good job selling it to the masses. And the masses will want it and not know why.
There was some limited discussion of vocational education, but it was only one page. (As a percentage of the length of this book, it was too little.)
Another (more correct) way to understand why vocational education is on the defensive would be to note that: 1. It requires understanding what are current market conditions for working. Since many educators have not filled out a job application in anywhere between 5 and 30 years, they won't have timely information. 2. Vocational training does not allow "men of words" to have a topic that they can use as an "influence fulcrum."
If this book had been about the actual returns on education, none of that philosophical discussion would have been necessary. A straightforward comparison of the returns on several actual educational courses would have made the point.
There are other books out there that I would recommend in preference to this one. The first would be The Higher Education Bubble (Encounter Broadside) And the second would be: " The End Is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure
It was a good, long, hard slog to get through this book. And I actually even read a couple of books in between this in order to break up this one.
There were a few neat little factoids (such as education does not change one's political affiliation or that religion and education are not related). Also, Caplan's tried-and-true (Talmudic) technique of inventing mythical characters to discuss and answer questions that readers might have was good.
It was enough to take it up one star, but it was not enough to save the book.
Verdict: Not recommended.
theattackslug's review
4.0
There are few conclusions here that the first month of American law school wouldn't lead you to (broadly, that most higher education is a signaling dance and otherwise a waste of time), but it's refreshing and entertaining to see all the evidence he puts together.
Satisfying reading for everyone who has suffered regular lectures about how unduly cynical our attitudes are and how the enduring, priceless value of all those Gen Ed courses (followed in all too many cases by the carbolic smoke ball and Lady Duff-Gordon) was that we learned how to think(?).
Satisfying reading for everyone who has suffered regular lectures about how unduly cynical our attitudes are and how the enduring, priceless value of all those Gen Ed courses (followed in all too many cases by the carbolic smoke ball and Lady Duff-Gordon) was that we learned how to think(?).
nghia's review
3.0
Bryan Caplan makes a strong case that much education, especially at the university level but even at the high school level in some circumstances, is a complete waste of time and money. Instead of actually teaching useful skills, he argues, it is simply zero-sum signalling.
The first four chapters are the strongest and while, I was reading them, I considered whether this was a 4- or even 5-star book. Caplan marshalls a number of arguments to try to convince you that education, at least as currently practiced today, is largely signalling rather than building actual human capital.
He offers up a number of arguments, no single one of which is decisive or completely convincing, but the sheer number of them adds enough weight to be convincing. We teach a lot of apparently useless subjects that have no value in the marketplace and little real world use: arts, foreign languages, geometry, P.E.!. University majors are replete with "useless" degrees that don't translate into jobs: philosophy, history, theology. Tests of long-term retention show that most people forget half of what they learn in school in 5 years and all of it within 25 years. Basic skills like reading comprehension, history, science, foreign languages, and numeracy are surprisingly low, even among college graduates who have studied them for 15+ years.
Claims about "learning how to learn" and "becoming a well-rounded individual" and "critical thinking" also fail to show up in a century of research. University students regularly skip classes they are paying for, forget everything immediately after cramming for an exam, and cheer when the teacher cancels class. (Shouldn't they instead be bemoaning the fact that they are missing out on a chance to build their precious human capital, Caplan argues?)
But starting in chapter 5, things begin to break down. Caplan essentially builds two giant formulas that try to calculate the selfish value of education (i.e. to you) and the social value of education (i.e. to society as a whole). These two chapters are pretty terrible, though I sympathise with the bind Caplan is in. There are too nitty gritty to be interesting. He flies through hundreds of studies that try to quantify dozens of factors. But they are too high level to meaningfully engage with anything. There's a lot of "trust me, I read a lot of studies on this and 2.8 is the most reasonable number to use here", which is just always going to be unsatisfying.
But my biggest complaint with all of this is simply that Caplan's argument would be a lot less compelling if he bothered to offer confidence intervals or sensitivity analysis instead of just point estimates. While I'm sympathetic to his claim that we have to come up with some estimate (everyone is implicitly doing that anyway when they decide whether or not to go to university), I think the confidence intervals given the data we have are so huge that we can't be nearly as certain as he is.
Once past all this honestly somewhat tedious analysis we to his proposed solutions which are fairly disappointing. He barely attempts to offer any realistic solutions. Immediately cut all school funding by 20%. (He adds that he actually is hard-core libertarian and doesn't think the state should provide any public schooling at all.) That's...just not actually a practical suggestion.
Some of his other ideas are a bit more tractable: get rid of Federal subsidies (via student loan guarantees); allow poor students to drop out of high school and enter the work force instead; dial back child labor laws to make work a viable option to decades of useless schooling; drop useless coursework like foreign languages, art, music, social studies, and history; give students more numerous and diverse options (why don't classes teach Japanese manga instead of 200 year old British poems?); allow more time for play.
A few reviews take umbrage, in particular, with his arguments in favor of expanded child labor. But I think he's actually fairly reasonable here. He's not actually arguing for child labor so much as teenage labor and offering young adults an option other than the academic track.
Caplan ends the book with a bizarre set of dialogues that rehashes his main points. He did something similar in [b:Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think|10266902|Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think|Bryan Caplan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328841683l/10266902._SY75_.jpg|15167333]. He really needs an editor to tell him to stop it.
So, a strong beginning that fizzles a bit down the stretch. I was already predisposed to agree with Caplan. My sister-in-law has a university degree in Spanish and works as an insurance claim adjuster. Absolutely nothing she learned in university is relevant for her job. Everything was "on-the-job training". But she ended up with a mountain of debt that took years to pay off. I think everyone has stories like this. Bartenders with a bachelor. Waiters with a masters. Chefs with a PhD. It all seems like a terrible waste. But Caplan points out that we're all trapped inside the system. It might be bad for society but good for an individual.
The road to academic success is paved with the trinity of intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity.
The first four chapters are the strongest and while, I was reading them, I considered whether this was a 4- or even 5-star book. Caplan marshalls a number of arguments to try to convince you that education, at least as currently practiced today, is largely signalling rather than building actual human capital.
He offers up a number of arguments, no single one of which is decisive or completely convincing, but the sheer number of them adds enough weight to be convincing. We teach a lot of apparently useless subjects that have no value in the marketplace and little real world use: arts, foreign languages, geometry, P.E.!. University majors are replete with "useless" degrees that don't translate into jobs: philosophy, history, theology. Tests of long-term retention show that most people forget half of what they learn in school in 5 years and all of it within 25 years. Basic skills like reading comprehension, history, science, foreign languages, and numeracy are surprisingly low, even among college graduates who have studied them for 15+ years.
After years of exposure, American adults know history, civics, science, and foreign languages exist. That’s about it.
Claims about "learning how to learn" and "becoming a well-rounded individual" and "critical thinking" also fail to show up in a century of research. University students regularly skip classes they are paying for, forget everything immediately after cramming for an exam, and cheer when the teacher cancels class. (Shouldn't they instead be bemoaning the fact that they are missing out on a chance to build their precious human capital, Caplan argues?)
Most of what schools teach has no value in the labor market. Students fail to learn most of what they’re taught. Adults forget most of what they learn.
But starting in chapter 5, things begin to break down. Caplan essentially builds two giant formulas that try to calculate the selfish value of education (i.e. to you) and the social value of education (i.e. to society as a whole). These two chapters are pretty terrible, though I sympathise with the bind Caplan is in. There are too nitty gritty to be interesting. He flies through hundreds of studies that try to quantify dozens of factors. But they are too high level to meaningfully engage with anything. There's a lot of "trust me, I read a lot of studies on this and 2.8 is the most reasonable number to use here", which is just always going to be unsatisfying.
But my biggest complaint with all of this is simply that Caplan's argument would be a lot less compelling if he bothered to offer confidence intervals or sensitivity analysis instead of just point estimates. While I'm sympathetic to his claim that we have to come up with some estimate (everyone is implicitly doing that anyway when they decide whether or not to go to university), I think the confidence intervals given the data we have are so huge that we can't be nearly as certain as he is.
Once past all this honestly somewhat tedious analysis we to his proposed solutions which are fairly disappointing. He barely attempts to offer any realistic solutions. Immediately cut all school funding by 20%. (He adds that he actually is hard-core libertarian and doesn't think the state should provide any public schooling at all.) That's...just not actually a practical suggestion.
Some of his other ideas are a bit more tractable: get rid of Federal subsidies (via student loan guarantees); allow poor students to drop out of high school and enter the work force instead; dial back child labor laws to make work a viable option to decades of useless schooling; drop useless coursework like foreign languages, art, music, social studies, and history; give students more numerous and diverse options (why don't classes teach Japanese manga instead of 200 year old British poems?); allow more time for play.
There really is no need for K–12 to teach history, social studies, art, music, or foreign languages. This is especially clear if you recall how much students forget: despite years of schoolwork, American adults can’t date the Civil War, name their congressman, draw, sing, or speak French.
A few reviews take umbrage, in particular, with his arguments in favor of expanded child labor. But I think he's actually fairly reasonable here. He's not actually arguing for child labor so much as teenage labor and offering young adults an option other than the academic track.
The vast American underclass shows this disturbing possibility is more than theoretically possible. Keeping bored, resentful kids on the academic track backfires. Instead of “downshifting” to vocational training, they settle for unskilled labor—or worse.
Caplan ends the book with a bizarre set of dialogues that rehashes his main points. He did something similar in [b:Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think|10266902|Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think|Bryan Caplan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328841683l/10266902._SY75_.jpg|15167333]. He really needs an editor to tell him to stop it.
So, a strong beginning that fizzles a bit down the stretch. I was already predisposed to agree with Caplan. My sister-in-law has a university degree in Spanish and works as an insurance claim adjuster. Absolutely nothing she learned in university is relevant for her job. Everything was "on-the-job training". But she ended up with a mountain of debt that took years to pay off. I think everyone has stories like this. Bartenders with a bachelor. Waiters with a masters. Chefs with a PhD. It all seems like a terrible waste. But Caplan points out that we're all trapped inside the system. It might be bad for society but good for an individual.
The rise of the Internet has two unsettling lessons for them. First: the humanist case for education subsidies is flimsy today because the Internet makes enlightenment practically free. Second: the humanist case for education subsidies was flimsy all along because the Internet proves low consumption of ideas and culture stems from apathy, not poverty or inconvenience.
vinayak's review
4.0
Very persuasive explanation of why the education system involves a huge waste of time and money. Must read for all educators.