Hooray, Jennifer - that is just an outstanding statement - as is the inspirational quote from César Chávez.

Who said that learning is just about financial gain? It is true that engineers generally make more than teachers with equal or greater academic achievement, but then athletes, rock stars, and sometime even strippers make more than engineers.

I believe I read that Jane Galt said this morning that education is worth less now than it used to be (i.e., your parents made it with a B.A./B.S. but now you need an M.A./M.S.). As a parent of three adult children, I can tell you that one of the most fulfilling aspects of parenting is teaching your children what you know, giving them the skills to learn and a love of learning, and watching them move beyond what you know.

If we are simply looking for trained technicians, perhaps a lengthy education is not necessary, but couldn’t we replace these technicians with technology and skip the human element? Is this the civilization we really want to be part of or raise children in?

Michael Lerner, in his latest book, The Left Hand of God, refers to studies of the Institute of Labor and Mental Health regarding work place satisfaction. He contends that his respondents report that the workplace is “deadening”, overly materialistic, all about “watching out for number one”. The result is the spiritual crisis we have in this country.

I agree with Jennifer. Education should be transformative. It should not only provide us with earning potential, but also with living potential: the wisdom to view life philosophically, avoid the mistakes of the past and improve the world we live in.

I think were still misunderstanding each other, but since I don’t strongly agree with the author, I won’t argue her point any further.

I’ve long argued that most post-secondary education (possibly most post-primary education), does not confer any useful skills upon students, but rather is a signalling mechanism: the education is a proxy for things like middle-classness, intelligence, and drive.

she is saying that college has become good only for transmitting these values, not at providing job-relevant, practical skills.

what bothers me about this quote is that she seems to think that the greatest benefit of a college education is to skyrocket into another earning bracket. i would argue that any college education (be it liberal arts of hard sciences) guarantees greater earning potential. yes, engineers make more money than anthropologists, but the anthropologist is going to be just fine in the end.

i’d say that the real benefit to education is not earning potential attained, but rather knowledge. the kind of knowledge that could potentially transform your world view. the kind of knowledge that could help you to recognize inequalities or injustices and to inspire you to change them.

here’s a quote that i like from césar chávez:

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.

i think that your author is saying that transmitting middle class values is unimportant. or at least that it as not AS important as job skills themselves.

No, she is saying that colleges will not transmit middle class values. Interpersonal skills, where ever you learned them, are not something you learn in college. So a college education is only a somewhat efficient mechanism at signalling to employers that you have those interpersonal skills, it is not an efficient way to attain them.

In addition, artificially raising the amount of kids that go to college, say by free education or other policy initiatives, will only make what used to be a somewhat efficient signalling mechanism now less efficient, meaning that employers will look for other more efficient signalling mechanism, mechanism that will most likely be at a greater disadvantage to the poor and lower classes.

I don’t know if I necessarily agree with everything she wrote, but she makes some good points nonetheless.