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A review by lassebirk
The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money by Bryan Caplan
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.