Freddie, This ground was covered (in a less data-driven way) by two books that I still teach, both (curiously) published in 1976: Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (1976) & Jerold Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Justice in Modern America (1976). Both very readable and still relevant.
Interesting. The bit about bottlenecking entry into the legal profession is spot on. I’m surprised how few of my colleagues see the sham. Maybe they do, but are thankful for the job and income protection machinations. It was apparent while I was in law school that it was a super high entry fee into the profession. Law school exists to make it impossible for most people to become lawyers, and to provide employment to a bunch of already-lawyers to teach and administer in them and look busy. Did the book also mention that newly minted lawyers straight out of law school don’t know jack and need to be trained from scratch? Ultimately that’s what makes law school a racket. If law school in fact reduced by 3 years how long it would take to train someone straight out of college to practice law, then it would be a soundish training. But it does no such thing. What’s arguably useful about law school can be condensed into a semester, year at most.
Then there’s admission to the bar, another barrier to entry. The bar is supposed to be the ultimate authority to maintain standards of practice and ethics in the profession, but it can do slimy things like protect its own and ignore complaints so actual cancers on the profession can wreak havoc for decades unchecked. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-06/how-california-state-bar-enabled-tom-girardi
"it’s wrongheaded to contrast liberal arts education with vocational education"
I'd be interested in more on this point sometime, because in the community college world, many reformers see liberal arts as a waste of time for students who just want a well-paying job. Meanwhile, liberal arts faculty hate the reforms and the new vocational programs (because of self-interest and, perhaps, a sincere belief that all students need liberal arts).
A lot of CC students hate school and struggle with it -- they don't want to take humanities, biology, or a foreign language (the dreaded world language requirement was always controversial. The system dropped it to improve graduation rates, which decimated the department's enrollment and forced the faculty to teach "college skills" courses instead of Spanish... they're still very mad.)
Plus, the liberal arts path requires students to transfer and spend even more time earning a Bachelor's degree. These students often have kids and a part-time job, so even a 2-year degree already takes years.
Maybe the biggest difference is not that vocational = jobs, but that the vocational track can lead to a job in a couple of years. Unless you have the time and money to enroll full time, liberal arts education is a long and expensive path. Especially for non-traditional students.
I think the point is simply that, if we think of the point of a vocational education being try pair a student up with a job, BA colleges have actually had a better track record than explicitly vocational schools, simply in terms of employment rates etc.
Is there any aspect of this that's driven by self-selection, i.e., those who go to college are from the start more motivated and ambitious and come from career and advancement focused families?
What about the idea that corporations are outsourcing their HR functions to universities? What I'm not sure about is how it worked before college attendance was widespread. Did businesses usually have a "mailroom" track to sort out high potential high school grads? But they've come to find that sorting by college attendances is both more reliable and far far cheaper?
At this point the Griggs precedent has been eroded so much it's hard to say it stops much. But I believe companies still can't require you to TAKE an SAT or similar test.
This is a surprising claim! I've never worked for particularly big companies or organizations, beyond one (nearly?) minimum wage job, but I've also never heard or read of other companies accepting, let alone _requiring_, that applicants submit their SAT scores.
"Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s."
I guess I'd quibble with "many companies" still, but that's interesting regardless! Your quote doesn't support that those companies _require_ SAT scores, but there might not be a big difference even if they only officially/formally 'request' them. (After reading the article, it does seem like some of the relevant companies do effectively 'require' them.)
Have you read or reviewed Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education"? His politics are very different from yours, but I can't think of any substantive differences in your views on education really.
Sad to see education week end but I'll look forward to more articles in the future as I am sure that Education as a subject will be revisited.
I've heard lots of grumbling about the licensing requirements in the medical field and the American Medical Association cartel. I know I've listened to a podcast about this (maybe it was some NPR show) and how there is such scarcity in general/family practitioners in certain states and regions that there has been a push to allow Nurse Practitioners take over the role that doctors normally take and (cannot) because of the shortage. This would include prescribing medication. And there is a massive push against this by the AMA... which is ridiculous when you look at the face of it. I don't think a couple of years of extra training is going to change how an NP treats their obese patient with hypertension who are on the same cholesterol and blood pressure drugs as 75% of the rest of the population in their cohort. Their argument is patient care will affected detrimentally. Patient care is already is already being affected because there are no doctors to take care of people!
Primary care doc here. 100% agree with you. Scandalous that NPs aren't given more autonomy. After hiring (then firing) shockingly bad doctors in our practice several years ago, we realized that good primary care comes down to :
1) being caring/empathetic and listening,
2) being detail-oriented and meticulous; and
3) knowing what you don't know (ie when to refer or get help).
You don't need to be an MD to have those skills. We now have a fabulous NP and a PA and they are awesome. Maybe 5% of the time, someone comes in with a diagnostic puzzle that an MD would be better at solving than the NP-- but that's when it's important to know what you don't know and get help. IMO, the rules barring NPs from being independent practionners are definitely designed to protect MD turf. But it's interesting; people are genuinely self-deluded. At a doctor's dinner about 5 yrs ago, I said something to the effect that NPs could do 90% of what we MDs do in primary care. I didn't think this was something controversial to say, but apparently it was. People justify and rationalize. Human nature.
What is odd to me is the fundamental assumption that a more educated population will mean a smaller standard deviation in the income distribution. What is the mechanism to action that?
It seems to derive from observing 1965, where there was a more clustered distribution, and noticing that those at the top had college degrees and in some limited cases advanced degrees. So if more of the population gets degrees that distribution will tighten? In the context of the complete elimination of worker power and wage competition from more foreign markets? The economy has changed, the skill mix has changed and employers have far more power relative to their workers. I am not sure why the skill mix would be the primary driver to lessen income inequality.
>"What is odd to me is the fundamental assumption that a more educated population will mean a smaller standard deviation in the income distribution. What is the mechanism to action that?"
Excellent question. The assumption seems to be, more education, more wealth to be shared. This is no doubt true for areas where there are obvious shortages, especially shortages maintained by educational requirements (law, medicine, plumbing). But it can also be seen as an arms race -- I get a diploma to protect myself so I won't lose to the other guy with a diploma, but we both would have been fit for the job without one. Once upon a time you could teach at a university without a PhD, now the PhD doesn't even get you that job.
So when Freddie (and Markovitz) suggest that the best universities increase enrollment, with a worthy goal of making success available to otherwise disadvantaged people, I'm still wondering, does this create more jobs?
My late father blamed the political unrest in Latin America on unemployed lawyers. He wasn't entirely wrong.
My psych said I have ADD, can you preface these long articles with a summary lol I do like your writing, but halfway through im like where is this going hehe.
Cool stuff, very interesting, and it's amazing how much you can write/type, seriously.
I used to think I could go around making jokes, but I think I need to be more serious. In a related story, my proctologist said I need to come back for a follow-up.
MLK Jr was right: "“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Street sweeping/garbage disposal is important work, and people who have the capability to do those jobs should feel important and be rewarded accordingly. How we make that happen is the key--after we quit pretending that just anyone with enough education can be a doctor or CEO. And developing machines to do that work is not a positive result for people who can and can only do that sort of work.
Freddie, This ground was covered (in a less data-driven way) by two books that I still teach, both (curiously) published in 1976: Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (1976) & Jerold Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Justice in Modern America (1976). Both very readable and still relevant.
Interesting. The bit about bottlenecking entry into the legal profession is spot on. I’m surprised how few of my colleagues see the sham. Maybe they do, but are thankful for the job and income protection machinations. It was apparent while I was in law school that it was a super high entry fee into the profession. Law school exists to make it impossible for most people to become lawyers, and to provide employment to a bunch of already-lawyers to teach and administer in them and look busy. Did the book also mention that newly minted lawyers straight out of law school don’t know jack and need to be trained from scratch? Ultimately that’s what makes law school a racket. If law school in fact reduced by 3 years how long it would take to train someone straight out of college to practice law, then it would be a soundish training. But it does no such thing. What’s arguably useful about law school can be condensed into a semester, year at most.
Then there’s admission to the bar, another barrier to entry. The bar is supposed to be the ultimate authority to maintain standards of practice and ethics in the profession, but it can do slimy things like protect its own and ignore complaints so actual cancers on the profession can wreak havoc for decades unchecked. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-06/how-california-state-bar-enabled-tom-girardi
"it’s wrongheaded to contrast liberal arts education with vocational education"
I'd be interested in more on this point sometime, because in the community college world, many reformers see liberal arts as a waste of time for students who just want a well-paying job. Meanwhile, liberal arts faculty hate the reforms and the new vocational programs (because of self-interest and, perhaps, a sincere belief that all students need liberal arts).
A lot of CC students hate school and struggle with it -- they don't want to take humanities, biology, or a foreign language (the dreaded world language requirement was always controversial. The system dropped it to improve graduation rates, which decimated the department's enrollment and forced the faculty to teach "college skills" courses instead of Spanish... they're still very mad.)
Plus, the liberal arts path requires students to transfer and spend even more time earning a Bachelor's degree. These students often have kids and a part-time job, so even a 2-year degree already takes years.
Maybe the biggest difference is not that vocational = jobs, but that the vocational track can lead to a job in a couple of years. Unless you have the time and money to enroll full time, liberal arts education is a long and expensive path. Especially for non-traditional students.
I think the point is simply that, if we think of the point of a vocational education being try pair a student up with a job, BA colleges have actually had a better track record than explicitly vocational schools, simply in terms of employment rates etc.
Is there any aspect of this that's driven by self-selection, i.e., those who go to college are from the start more motivated and ambitious and come from career and advancement focused families?
Almost certainly, although I'd surmise it's more about IQ than about conscientiousness.
What about the idea that corporations are outsourcing their HR functions to universities? What I'm not sure about is how it worked before college attendance was widespread. Did businesses usually have a "mailroom" track to sort out high potential high school grads? But they've come to find that sorting by college attendances is both more reliable and far far cheaper?
Particularly since the Supreme Court outlawed intelligence testing for job applicants, though it's a very tattered protection at this point....
But many companies do require that you submit your SAT scores. That's a pretty good proxy.
At this point the Griggs precedent has been eroded so much it's hard to say it stops much. But I believe companies still can't require you to TAKE an SAT or similar test.
This is a surprising claim! I've never worked for particularly big companies or organizations, beyond one (nearly?) minimum wage job, but I've also never heard or read of other companies accepting, let alone _requiring_, that applicants submit their SAT scores.
What're your source(s) for this claim?
"Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395220334268350
I guess I'd quibble with "many companies" still, but that's interesting regardless! Your quote doesn't support that those companies _require_ SAT scores, but there might not be a big difference even if they only officially/formally 'request' them. (After reading the article, it does seem like some of the relevant companies do effectively 'require' them.)
Have you read or reviewed Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education"? His politics are very different from yours, but I can't think of any substantive differences in your views on education really.
Sad to see education week end but I'll look forward to more articles in the future as I am sure that Education as a subject will be revisited.
I've heard lots of grumbling about the licensing requirements in the medical field and the American Medical Association cartel. I know I've listened to a podcast about this (maybe it was some NPR show) and how there is such scarcity in general/family practitioners in certain states and regions that there has been a push to allow Nurse Practitioners take over the role that doctors normally take and (cannot) because of the shortage. This would include prescribing medication. And there is a massive push against this by the AMA... which is ridiculous when you look at the face of it. I don't think a couple of years of extra training is going to change how an NP treats their obese patient with hypertension who are on the same cholesterol and blood pressure drugs as 75% of the rest of the population in their cohort. Their argument is patient care will affected detrimentally. Patient care is already is already being affected because there are no doctors to take care of people!
Primary care doc here. 100% agree with you. Scandalous that NPs aren't given more autonomy. After hiring (then firing) shockingly bad doctors in our practice several years ago, we realized that good primary care comes down to :
1) being caring/empathetic and listening,
2) being detail-oriented and meticulous; and
3) knowing what you don't know (ie when to refer or get help).
You don't need to be an MD to have those skills. We now have a fabulous NP and a PA and they are awesome. Maybe 5% of the time, someone comes in with a diagnostic puzzle that an MD would be better at solving than the NP-- but that's when it's important to know what you don't know and get help. IMO, the rules barring NPs from being independent practionners are definitely designed to protect MD turf. But it's interesting; people are genuinely self-deluded. At a doctor's dinner about 5 yrs ago, I said something to the effect that NPs could do 90% of what we MDs do in primary care. I didn't think this was something controversial to say, but apparently it was. People justify and rationalize. Human nature.
What is odd to me is the fundamental assumption that a more educated population will mean a smaller standard deviation in the income distribution. What is the mechanism to action that?
It seems to derive from observing 1965, where there was a more clustered distribution, and noticing that those at the top had college degrees and in some limited cases advanced degrees. So if more of the population gets degrees that distribution will tighten? In the context of the complete elimination of worker power and wage competition from more foreign markets? The economy has changed, the skill mix has changed and employers have far more power relative to their workers. I am not sure why the skill mix would be the primary driver to lessen income inequality.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>"What is odd to me is the fundamental assumption that a more educated population will mean a smaller standard deviation in the income distribution. What is the mechanism to action that?"
That's extremely well put!
Excellent question. The assumption seems to be, more education, more wealth to be shared. This is no doubt true for areas where there are obvious shortages, especially shortages maintained by educational requirements (law, medicine, plumbing). But it can also be seen as an arms race -- I get a diploma to protect myself so I won't lose to the other guy with a diploma, but we both would have been fit for the job without one. Once upon a time you could teach at a university without a PhD, now the PhD doesn't even get you that job.
So when Freddie (and Markovitz) suggest that the best universities increase enrollment, with a worthy goal of making success available to otherwise disadvantaged people, I'm still wondering, does this create more jobs?
My late father blamed the political unrest in Latin America on unemployed lawyers. He wasn't entirely wrong.
My psych said I have ADD, can you preface these long articles with a summary lol I do like your writing, but halfway through im like where is this going hehe.
Cool stuff, very interesting, and it's amazing how much you can write/type, seriously.
I agree, it’s important for others to contort themselves to accommodate your special needs.
Omgf.it was half kidding
I agree, it's important to put people in their place for asking politely (and jovially) for something
I used to think I could go around making jokes, but I think I need to be more serious. In a related story, my proctologist said I need to come back for a follow-up.
MLK Jr was right: "“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Street sweeping/garbage disposal is important work, and people who have the capability to do those jobs should feel important and be rewarded accordingly. How we make that happen is the key--after we quit pretending that just anyone with enough education can be a doctor or CEO. And developing machines to do that work is not a positive result for people who can and can only do that sort of work.