Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“The central thesis of my The Case Against Education is that actually-existing education is a terrible waste of taxpayer money. Since signaling, not building human capital, is the main function of education, the main effect of government subsidies is credential inflation. In economic jargon, my claim is that education has a low (indeed, negative) social return. Along the way, however, I also show that the private (or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘selfish’) return to education heavily depends on pre-existing student ability. Despite misleading statements by mainstream education economists, college attendance in particular is not a good career investment for most of the population.” (02/19/25)