ZadekpediaBryan Caplan is an economist who teaches at George Mason University, a blogger at EconLog, and the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, and The Case Against Education. He appeared on The Bob Zadek Show to discuss the last of these. Bryan Caplan’s Case Against Higher Education (2018)
On the show
1 appearance, 2018.
- 2018-05-10 · Bryan Caplan’s Case Against Higher Education · 51:55 — The Case Against Education and Signaling.
Their books discussed on the show
- The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007) — discussed 2018, 2022
- Open Borders (2019) — discussed 2018
- Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids (2011) — discussed 2018
- The Case Against Education (2018) — discussed 2018
The signaling thesis
Caplan told Bob Zadek that he agrees with the conventional advice that doing well in school leads to a better job and more money, but questions whether students actually learn useful job skills there. Most of what one studies in school, he said, is never needed after the final exam, which raises the puzzle of why employers pay so much for it. His answer is that studying subjects one does not use impresses employers—a way of getting certification, or signaling. If one person shows off, that person gets a better job; if everyone shows off, the bar rises, so that a high school diploma gives way to a college degree and then to a master’s degree.
Zadek framed the thesis as a question of whether education is overpriced and whether government spends too much on it. Caplan replied that a large part of the problem is government pouring money into schooling on the reasoning that if one person gets more school and does better, everyone would do better—precisely what he calls into question. He argued that to understand education’s real social effect one must look inside the classroom at what students study and learn, and that subjects such as poetry, a foreign language one will never speak, or history, when not retained, produce a rat race in which everyone needs more degrees. Individually this works, he said, but it is not a way for society to get rich.
What a degree certifies
Asked about the signaling effect, Caplan compared education to two ways of raising a diamond’s value: cutting it well, or having an expert certify it as flawless with a sticker. Literacy and numeracy are genuinely taught and genuinely needed, he said, but much other material is signaling—certification or stamping. He identified three things a degree signals: that the holder is smart, since smart people find it easier to excel in school; that the holder is hardworking, since even a very smart lazy person will not finish a degree; and sheer conformity—being a person who, when told to jump, asks how high rather than arguing. Employers need all three traits, he noted, since being smart and hardworking is not enough if one is not a team player.
Diploma mills and the cost disconnect
Zadek raised the phrase “diploma mills” and asked whether most universities are effectively selling the degree rather than the content. Caplan called that probably too broad: a classic diploma mill requires little work and hands over a degree for money, whereas most universities make students jump through numerous and challenging hoops, and a shocking number of people start, pay, and do not finish. At lower-ranked schools, he said, most students would not finish even going full-time. His story is in a way more pessimistic than the diploma mill, because students spend years doing boring work they dislike and get only the seal of approval rather than job skills.
On cost, Zadek drew an analogy to healthcare, where the spender spends someone else’s money. Caplan agreed that paying one’s own money makes one more careful, and that subsidies are a big contributing problem rather than the sole one, since subtracting the subsidy makes schooling cheaper. He contrasted his book with others that seek to make college cheaper so more people go; his aim is to stop the madness and return to a society where one can get a good job right out of high school, which he said used to be the case and could be again.
Rewarding knowledge and the Swiss model
Zadek proposed that government might instead reward people who become educated, letting individuals choose courses out of curiosity. Caplan agreed, noting that people quickly forget unused material and that in his book he tracked down studies of what American adults actually know, rather than relying on final or exit exams. Employers, he reasoned, would reward what you know now rather than what you used to know—unless the point is to impress them. A good grade in European history, even with no history retained, persuades an employer that one could learn something else.
Zadek asked whether any country does education better. Caplan named Switzerland, where only about 10% of people finish college but there is a fantastic system of vocational training for young people; he called it one of the most skilled countries in the world, with almost no underclass, and said that for kids who do not like school it teaches them to be woodworkers, steelworkers, or train conductors.
Across episodes
The episodes come from a single episode, so they show no development of the topic across episodes; the education discussion and the caller exchange on population both occur within this one broadcast.