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    The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
    Unavailable
    The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
    Unavailable
    The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
    Ebook636 pages7 hours

    The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money

    By Bryan Caplan

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education

    Despite being immensely popular--and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity—in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.

    Caplan draws on the latest social science to show how the labor market values grades over knowledge, and why the more education your rivals have, the more you need to impress employers. He explains why graduation is our society's top conformity signal, and why even the most useless degrees can certify employability. He advocates two major policy responses. The first is educational austerity. Government needs to sharply cut education funding to curb this wasteful rat race. The second is more vocational education, because practical skills are more socially valuable than teaching students how to outshine their peers.

    Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJan 16, 2018
    ISBN9781400889327
    Unavailable
    The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
    Author

    Bryan Caplan

    Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and one of the world’s leading advocates of free migration. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, named "the best political book of the year" by the New York Times; Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids and The Case Against Education; and is a blogger for EconLog. He has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, American Economic Review, Economic Journal, Journal of Law and Economics, and Intelligence, and appeared on ABC, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. An openly nerdy man who loves role-playing games and graphic novels, he’s live in Oakton, Virginia, with his wife and four kids.

    Read more from Bryan Caplan

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    Reviews for The Case against Education

    4/5

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    • 2/5
      I think there's good case against Education. But I think the author did not quite make his case.

      When he said, Philosophy as useless -- I think, I had to chuck his thoughts on it.

      I've spent enough time in reading, understanding Philosophy. It's complicated, requires intense effort and understanding to finish a simple Kantian Book.

      What do we gain after it?

      - We engage with best minds in Human Civilization
      - Our thoughts are raised to a higher level
      - Our thoughts are shaped by best thinkers
      - They become systematic
      - We can learn abstract, conceptual thought by reading Philosophy.
      - We can expand and understand new fields of Human Knowledge as Philosophy is the foundation

      Overall, I would recommend this to someone who want to rant against Modern Education. There's a lot we can work on improving Modern Education.

      But I wouldn't throw a blanket statement on calling it useless.

      Deus Vult,
      Gottfried
    • 5/5
      An economics professor at a prestigious university arguing that our current educational system is a waste of time and money is automatically interesting. Add to that the way it is presented is both interesting and backed by data. Loads of data. Ultimately he may not want to agree with the author but you can't say the position isn't backed by data. He even gives a link to a spreadsheet where you can change things and see the ultimate effects.

      The other remarkable thing about this book is that the author is very upfront about his biases and offers space where he lets others disagree with him. Two things that just aren't usually done, but should be done all the time.

      Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      This book was ok. I really liked that the author poses tough questions about the role of educators: Are we sculptors or appraisers? While I agree with the author that education is not focused enough on skills, my goal is very different from his.

      I had hoped that the book would go more in depth about education, its purpose and potential. Unfortunately, the author's goal seems to not be the improvement of education and empowerment of people, but de-funding education and going back towards a more individualistic society. My goal was to know how we can create a better functioning society, where people are equipped with the skills to participate in debate and policy-making and invention.

      As an engineer, I completely disagree with the claims that engineering is the only valuable skill to the economy. Humanities teach critical thinking skills much better because they actually have students debate and engage in critique. In engineering, we solve highly constrained problems.

      The author never really discusses what skills are or the different types of values. He just uses a limited view of monetary worth - what are people paying for degrees in that area? Which is weird since he also stated that degrees aren't signals of skills anyways.

      The chapter on social benefits of education is equally lame and basically a cop out.

      I was home-schooled because of issues in public education. I have a PhD in engineering. I fully care about and educate myself on learning sciences applied to my work as a professor. I agree that education seems to be focused on pieces of paper more than skills and that my role seems to be characterized as an appraiser - and I would like to be more of a sculptor, one who teaches students how to sculpt themselves. This book did not provide me with a new tools and concepts for improving public or private education.

      I actually read Bryan Caplan's op-ed in the LA Times before reading this book - a coincidence since the book was chosen for Georgia Tech's Center for Teaching and Learning book club months after I read the article. You can skip this book and read the op-ed to get all of the useful content. Then, go read books on learning science to help address the problem.