I think it's worth considering the possibility that the universities are actually optimizing for what the people hiring their graduates want.
Firms that hire from the most elite schools face substantial PR (including from current and potential employees) pressure to have a more diverse workforce but also are legally and PR blocked from just lowering the bar for minority applicants. The universities are doing exactly what optimizes graduate desierability in such a world because the employer wants the best performers from both minority and non-minority groups but would prefer not to set a lower bar for test scores for minority hires for PR reasons. The universities just do the dirty work of washing away any overt signals of that difference.
And look, it makes sense since many jobs aren't that sensative to raw ability only the perception that you are hireing the best people. Truth is that lawyers at a white shoe firm don't need to be the very top level in ability but the clients need to believe they are choosing the most elite lawyers.
So it's not really a cost if some of your employees don't actually have the best test scores as long as that fact is effectively hidden and no one else can signal they do better (which would be hard given they have to say they avoid hiring those worse performing minorities like that other firm)
I think this is largely a part of it for firms that like to advertise they hire from "the best" universities. However, it has been noted that e.g. many law firms are starting to refuse to hire Harvard graduates, so there is some real concern about the quality of those graduates, one that is getting translated into different rankings in hiring managers' minds. Likewise, I recall back in about 2001 talking with the Marine recruiter at PennState about the Marine Corps' ranking of schools in various disciplines, specifically how PSU Engineering was bumped down from "very competitive" to "competitive" (or something similar). So there are definitely real effects being tracked by the universities' customers. I think large companies with PR interests around hiring both the best and the diverse are well served by the schools, but everyone else will adjust accordingly.
The big question is whether or not families with prospective students will adjust sufficiently, I think. I have noticed a big disconnect between what hiring firms that interact with the new grads think of institutions and what families think. It seems that families tend to attribute quality to "I have heard of that school" and "I have heard that school is good". The latter seems to be a lagging data point, often to when the parent went to school, and the former seems tied to "the school is big and/or has a successful football team."
My understanding is that most of the places who have decided to stop targeting Harvard graduates did it for ideological reasons.
I agree there are real effects being tracked by the customers, but I'm not convinced that the affirmative action they engage in is large enough in numbers to really matter in this analysis. And the perception of prospective students that Harvard is elite is largely what makes it elite sk they kinda can't be wrong.
I mean, ultimately, as long as all but a small part of the Harvard class is choosen on some achievement metric (grades but pretty much anything) and the prospective students see Harvard as highly desierable they'll end up with the most capable (in a highly intelligent and conscientiousness/diligence sense) students (w/ a small number of AA admits) because the most capable applicants will tend to be most able to effectively compete on whatever hoops Harvard decides to make them jump through.
The primary complaint I have heard about Harvard graduates is that they don't want to do work, but think they should be running the place as soon as they are hired. I think that is partially a result of the Harvard theme of "Hard to get into, easy to graduate". That is to say, all the selection is at the front end, so the graduation rate is basically 100% via students being allowed to coast through low standards. It is a recipe for entitlement: they have already done their heavy lift, now it is beer and skittles for the rest of their life.
So in a way, the students seeing Harvard as highly desirable works against them, not for them, as the students over inflate their ego, resulting in graduates who are good at little other than the college application process yet deeply believe they are the best of the best. They are basically still "competent high school students" but with a few years of college under their belt and a massive ego. The sorts of people who run to HR as soon as something doesn't go their way, I expect.
Now, I think Harvard is a bit more prone to that because of their elite status; similar outcomes can be found at many colleges, but since their students less frequently consider themselves tiny gods just because they got accepted the problem is less pronounced. In general, though, telling young people that they have achieved something great from getting into college (but really it is a very porous filter) and them telling them how smart they are for 5 years while passing them through (so long as they even make an attempt at the work) to get that 90% graduation rate is a recipe for maladjusted miserable people with deeply miscalibrated senses of their relative value and position in society.
My primary issue with these changes isn't that I think they will cause a drop in standards (most admits don't get DEI bonuses) but that the schools have given up the one tool which lets them distinguish concienciousness and brilliance.
HS grades mostly measure conscientiousness above some low threshold of intelligence. And conscientiousness is important but the SAT used to provide a way for the brilliant but less conscientious kid to get into a great school. Since the SAT also is partially reflective of conscientiousness if you do really well despite only ok HS grades it probably suggests a fair bit of smarts.
This may not matter for corporations looking for generic hires but I fear it may reduce the number of truly brilliant scientists and innovators we produce. After all, its the brilliant but less conscientious kid who benefits most from a school where everyone else is taking hard classes because they (unlike their conscientious peers) would be most likely to not challenge themselves at state school.
In other words it's the cover up that's a problem. If you want to admit some students for other reasons (be it diversity or ability to throw a football) go ahead and do it. Just don't fuck up the part where you also make sure you admit the truly brilliant students.
"As I show in _The Case Against Education_, the main purpose of education is signaling. Specifically, students’ goal is to convince prospective employers that they are smart, hard-working, and conformist."
The above statement needs to be qualified with respect to the nature of the signal being sent. Given that the most rewarding careers in contemporary Western nations are associated with licensed occupations and with employment by privilege-mongering corporations and by government bureaucracies, providing evidence of a capacity for independent thought and hard-work is less important than demonstrating that one can and will follow all the tedious rules associated with the licenses, privileges, regulations, etc. that cover one's field. What better way is there to do that than to prove over and over again over many years that you are good at regurgitating the "right answer" on demand and at figuring out how to perform some highly structured task on demand from a pre-defined set of such tasks? Such is the signal that is really being sent by academic credentials these days.
This isn't so much a system of higher education as it is a system of higher indoctrination. Predatory elites need a class of minions who are smart in the sense that they can make elite-controlled institutions function as the elites intend, but are stupid or cowardly with respect to formulating and pursuing other goals of their own.
Graduation rates aren't really relevant. Almost all of the signalling value comes from selectivity because it's MUCH MUCH easier to graduate from the top schools (Caltech is only somewhat easier) than to get in.
Thus, as long as people accept the ratings as a proxy for ability they will remain a very good proxy.
Sure the ivy league schools are willing to accept some students with worse metrics to increase diversity but it's unlikely that will ever be a very large fraction of their admits. Thus, whoever has the highest rank will be what the best students most want to attend and thus be able to select for the very best students for most of their entrants.
Yes but only for a particular group that's a small fraction of the population.
Ironically, the economically rational response (if you only care about hiring the most able) would be to continue treating white graduates from these schools the same and discount the diploma for minority applications.
But realistically companies don't mind or care about this because they face pressure to diversify too and these elite institutions are offering them the chance to do it without taking any heat themselves. It's worth it to them for PR reasons to make the same trade off that the universities are making provided it's a small fraction of their hires and they don't have to take the political heat -- and if the university covers the differences between the applicants they don't.
> the main purpose of education is signaling. Specifically, students’ goal is to convince prospective employers that they are smart, hard-working, and conformist. This only works if schools are somehow elitist. The school that equally certifies everyone certifies no one.
This is a correct description of signaling, but it contradicts your established position that if the difference in income earned between graduates and nongraduates (wherever) is "entirely due to signaling", there is no difference in quality between the graduates and nongraduates.
If there is no difference in quality between two groups, then a difference in outcome between them cannot be due to signaling because no signal exists to be sent. For signaling to occur at all, there must be a difference between the groups.
1) Almost all of the return to income from an elite school is from the selectivity (it's just a fancy way of showing an employer you were good enough to outcompete the other kids trying to go to Harvard).
As such if the schools stop being selective then they don't offer that signal.
2) Yes, obviously the reason admits who don't graduate have different income from those who do requires that the lack of graduation signal some difference
I believe he says that failing to graduate indicates lack of conscientiousness or weirdness that companies find undesirable (constant penalty for dropping out b4 grad). However, if there was also some educational value which caused the return to elite schooling then we should see people who fall one credit short of graduation capture almost all of that value and get paid more than people who drop out during their first semester but we don't.
Or at least I think that is what he is trying to say.
> 2) Yes, obviously the reason admits who don't graduate have different income from those who do requires that the lack of graduation signal some difference
This directly contradicts Bryan's own description of his position. Not in this piece. I'm pointing out that his statements here are not compatible with his earlier statements.
I believe he's specifically endorsed the point about weirdness. But I'm happy to be corrected if you remember where. Both of us just remembering probably isn't helpful.
It doesn't "help" a sub par student to lowering entry standards. They have been ruined by public school incompetence which is almost impossible to overcome. If the student is in STEM they will either fail out or the school will lower graduation standards. Then it's the patient who will die when their doctor proves to be incompetent. But if the student doesn't enter STEM, then no problem, they can become president of Harvard.
If schools wanted to really promote more egalitarianism, they would conduct more research into productive, non signally education/training techniques. But often I think they don't like the twin answers of a) direct instruction for the basics and b) a plateau for students without talent and motivation, things that are difficult or impossible to trach/train.
Are they mutually exclusive? Suppose understanding what Caplan teaches is both correct and difficult to understand without a lot of effort. He is satisfying his purpose to teach what he believes is correct and and the same time enabling the student to "signal" positive traits (intelligence, strong work ethic...)
It's because of his sincere admiration for real education that he hates that schools have degraded it by pretending to teach to students who are uninterested in the material and just seeking degrees.
Yep and I knew this was true before your comment. So explain his rhetorical strategy to me. Why isn’t he more positive about education in a post like this?
I suspect the main purpose of his teaching is the same as almost all academics: retain their job as a professor so they can do the research they want. I'm sure it has other purposes to but that's going to be primary.
Also the question of what gets students better paying jobs isn't the same as the question of what makes their lives better. I assume he thinks that, at least on the margin, his teaching will give the students an intellectually rewarding experience that will help them feel they understand the world.
I mean might not be practical but lots of people like to read pop physics books even though they'll never need to predict how quarks influence high energy nuclear collisions.
"Once standardized testing became standard, the standard solution to this tension was hypocrisy and tokenism. Be meritocratic, talk egalitarian, and admit a few subpar students."
1) People notice there is free stuff in tokenism, and they want to be tokens too. Also, existing tokens push for further token privileges, and engage in propaganda to make sure nobody calls out their tokenness.
Like Pinnochio, a lie just keeps growing.
2) The quantity eligible tokens increased due to immigration. Now it's not just blacks, but Hispanics and others.
Also, sexual orientation/gender identity became another protected class that needed new tokens.
3) There was a genuine fear that becoming too Asian would hurt the brand, so an excuse was needed to keep them below 20%. It's easier to say the quota is for the benefit of blacks and against the benefit of Asians.
Contained tokenism only worked in an environment where there was an overwhelming majority group and a manageable minority black population.
I think it's worth considering the possibility that the universities are actually optimizing for what the people hiring their graduates want.
Firms that hire from the most elite schools face substantial PR (including from current and potential employees) pressure to have a more diverse workforce but also are legally and PR blocked from just lowering the bar for minority applicants. The universities are doing exactly what optimizes graduate desierability in such a world because the employer wants the best performers from both minority and non-minority groups but would prefer not to set a lower bar for test scores for minority hires for PR reasons. The universities just do the dirty work of washing away any overt signals of that difference.
And look, it makes sense since many jobs aren't that sensative to raw ability only the perception that you are hireing the best people. Truth is that lawyers at a white shoe firm don't need to be the very top level in ability but the clients need to believe they are choosing the most elite lawyers.
So it's not really a cost if some of your employees don't actually have the best test scores as long as that fact is effectively hidden and no one else can signal they do better (which would be hard given they have to say they avoid hiring those worse performing minorities like that other firm)
I think this is largely a part of it for firms that like to advertise they hire from "the best" universities. However, it has been noted that e.g. many law firms are starting to refuse to hire Harvard graduates, so there is some real concern about the quality of those graduates, one that is getting translated into different rankings in hiring managers' minds. Likewise, I recall back in about 2001 talking with the Marine recruiter at PennState about the Marine Corps' ranking of schools in various disciplines, specifically how PSU Engineering was bumped down from "very competitive" to "competitive" (or something similar). So there are definitely real effects being tracked by the universities' customers. I think large companies with PR interests around hiring both the best and the diverse are well served by the schools, but everyone else will adjust accordingly.
The big question is whether or not families with prospective students will adjust sufficiently, I think. I have noticed a big disconnect between what hiring firms that interact with the new grads think of institutions and what families think. It seems that families tend to attribute quality to "I have heard of that school" and "I have heard that school is good". The latter seems to be a lagging data point, often to when the parent went to school, and the former seems tied to "the school is big and/or has a successful football team."
My understanding is that most of the places who have decided to stop targeting Harvard graduates did it for ideological reasons.
I agree there are real effects being tracked by the customers, but I'm not convinced that the affirmative action they engage in is large enough in numbers to really matter in this analysis. And the perception of prospective students that Harvard is elite is largely what makes it elite sk they kinda can't be wrong.
I mean, ultimately, as long as all but a small part of the Harvard class is choosen on some achievement metric (grades but pretty much anything) and the prospective students see Harvard as highly desierable they'll end up with the most capable (in a highly intelligent and conscientiousness/diligence sense) students (w/ a small number of AA admits) because the most capable applicants will tend to be most able to effectively compete on whatever hoops Harvard decides to make them jump through.
The primary complaint I have heard about Harvard graduates is that they don't want to do work, but think they should be running the place as soon as they are hired. I think that is partially a result of the Harvard theme of "Hard to get into, easy to graduate". That is to say, all the selection is at the front end, so the graduation rate is basically 100% via students being allowed to coast through low standards. It is a recipe for entitlement: they have already done their heavy lift, now it is beer and skittles for the rest of their life.
So in a way, the students seeing Harvard as highly desirable works against them, not for them, as the students over inflate their ego, resulting in graduates who are good at little other than the college application process yet deeply believe they are the best of the best. They are basically still "competent high school students" but with a few years of college under their belt and a massive ego. The sorts of people who run to HR as soon as something doesn't go their way, I expect.
Now, I think Harvard is a bit more prone to that because of their elite status; similar outcomes can be found at many colleges, but since their students less frequently consider themselves tiny gods just because they got accepted the problem is less pronounced. In general, though, telling young people that they have achieved something great from getting into college (but really it is a very porous filter) and them telling them how smart they are for 5 years while passing them through (so long as they even make an attempt at the work) to get that 90% graduation rate is a recipe for maladjusted miserable people with deeply miscalibrated senses of their relative value and position in society.
My primary issue with these changes isn't that I think they will cause a drop in standards (most admits don't get DEI bonuses) but that the schools have given up the one tool which lets them distinguish concienciousness and brilliance.
HS grades mostly measure conscientiousness above some low threshold of intelligence. And conscientiousness is important but the SAT used to provide a way for the brilliant but less conscientious kid to get into a great school. Since the SAT also is partially reflective of conscientiousness if you do really well despite only ok HS grades it probably suggests a fair bit of smarts.
This may not matter for corporations looking for generic hires but I fear it may reduce the number of truly brilliant scientists and innovators we produce. After all, its the brilliant but less conscientious kid who benefits most from a school where everyone else is taking hard classes because they (unlike their conscientious peers) would be most likely to not challenge themselves at state school.
In other words it's the cover up that's a problem. If you want to admit some students for other reasons (be it diversity or ability to throw a football) go ahead and do it. Just don't fuck up the part where you also make sure you admit the truly brilliant students.
"As I show in _The Case Against Education_, the main purpose of education is signaling. Specifically, students’ goal is to convince prospective employers that they are smart, hard-working, and conformist."
The above statement needs to be qualified with respect to the nature of the signal being sent. Given that the most rewarding careers in contemporary Western nations are associated with licensed occupations and with employment by privilege-mongering corporations and by government bureaucracies, providing evidence of a capacity for independent thought and hard-work is less important than demonstrating that one can and will follow all the tedious rules associated with the licenses, privileges, regulations, etc. that cover one's field. What better way is there to do that than to prove over and over again over many years that you are good at regurgitating the "right answer" on demand and at figuring out how to perform some highly structured task on demand from a pre-defined set of such tasks? Such is the signal that is really being sent by academic credentials these days.
This isn't so much a system of higher education as it is a system of higher indoctrination. Predatory elites need a class of minions who are smart in the sense that they can make elite-controlled institutions function as the elites intend, but are stupid or cowardly with respect to formulating and pursuing other goals of their own.
Graduation rates aren't really relevant. Almost all of the signalling value comes from selectivity because it's MUCH MUCH easier to graduate from the top schools (Caltech is only somewhat easier) than to get in.
Thus, as long as people accept the ratings as a proxy for ability they will remain a very good proxy.
Sure the ivy league schools are willing to accept some students with worse metrics to increase diversity but it's unlikely that will ever be a very large fraction of their admits. Thus, whoever has the highest rank will be what the best students most want to attend and thus be able to select for the very best students for most of their entrants.
They're reducing selectivity and bragging about it.
Yes but only for a particular group that's a small fraction of the population.
Ironically, the economically rational response (if you only care about hiring the most able) would be to continue treating white graduates from these schools the same and discount the diploma for minority applications.
But realistically companies don't mind or care about this because they face pressure to diversify too and these elite institutions are offering them the chance to do it without taking any heat themselves. It's worth it to them for PR reasons to make the same trade off that the universities are making provided it's a small fraction of their hires and they don't have to take the political heat -- and if the university covers the differences between the applicants they don't.
> the main purpose of education is signaling. Specifically, students’ goal is to convince prospective employers that they are smart, hard-working, and conformist. This only works if schools are somehow elitist. The school that equally certifies everyone certifies no one.
This is a correct description of signaling, but it contradicts your established position that if the difference in income earned between graduates and nongraduates (wherever) is "entirely due to signaling", there is no difference in quality between the graduates and nongraduates.
If there is no difference in quality between two groups, then a difference in outcome between them cannot be due to signaling because no signal exists to be sent. For signaling to occur at all, there must be a difference between the groups.
His position is that:
1) Almost all of the return to income from an elite school is from the selectivity (it's just a fancy way of showing an employer you were good enough to outcompete the other kids trying to go to Harvard).
As such if the schools stop being selective then they don't offer that signal.
2) Yes, obviously the reason admits who don't graduate have different income from those who do requires that the lack of graduation signal some difference
I believe he says that failing to graduate indicates lack of conscientiousness or weirdness that companies find undesirable (constant penalty for dropping out b4 grad). However, if there was also some educational value which caused the return to elite schooling then we should see people who fall one credit short of graduation capture almost all of that value and get paid more than people who drop out during their first semester but we don't.
Or at least I think that is what he is trying to say.
> 2) Yes, obviously the reason admits who don't graduate have different income from those who do requires that the lack of graduation signal some difference
This directly contradicts Bryan's own description of his position. Not in this piece. I'm pointing out that his statements here are not compatible with his earlier statements.
I believe he's specifically endorsed the point about weirdness. But I'm happy to be corrected if you remember where. Both of us just remembering probably isn't helpful.
It doesn't "help" a sub par student to lowering entry standards. They have been ruined by public school incompetence which is almost impossible to overcome. If the student is in STEM they will either fail out or the school will lower graduation standards. Then it's the patient who will die when their doctor proves to be incompetent. But if the student doesn't enter STEM, then no problem, they can become president of Harvard.
If schools wanted to really promote more egalitarianism, they would conduct more research into productive, non signally education/training techniques. But often I think they don't like the twin answers of a) direct instruction for the basics and b) a plateau for students without talent and motivation, things that are difficult or impossible to trach/train.
“As I show in The Case Against Education, the main purpose of education is signaling.”
But you love education and you love helping people discover truth.
At the Caplan Family School, what is the main purpose? To what extent is signaling a top priority at Caplan Family School?
To what extent is the main purpose of your teaching at GMU signaling?
What is the main purpose of your educational books?
Are they mutually exclusive? Suppose understanding what Caplan teaches is both correct and difficult to understand without a lot of effort. He is satisfying his purpose to teach what he believes is correct and and the same time enabling the student to "signal" positive traits (intelligence, strong work ethic...)
Bryan has said that he actually loved education:
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/how_i_love_educ.html
It's because of his sincere admiration for real education that he hates that schools have degraded it by pretending to teach to students who are uninterested in the material and just seeking degrees.
Yep and I knew this was true before your comment. So explain his rhetorical strategy to me. Why isn’t he more positive about education in a post like this?
I suspect the main purpose of his teaching is the same as almost all academics: retain their job as a professor so they can do the research they want. I'm sure it has other purposes to but that's going to be primary.
Also the question of what gets students better paying jobs isn't the same as the question of what makes their lives better. I assume he thinks that, at least on the margin, his teaching will give the students an intellectually rewarding experience that will help them feel they understand the world.
I mean might not be practical but lots of people like to read pop physics books even though they'll never need to predict how quarks influence high energy nuclear collisions.
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/roi2022/
I think we should be able to agree that this is the better ranking (Return on Investment).
"Once standardized testing became standard, the standard solution to this tension was hypocrisy and tokenism. Be meritocratic, talk egalitarian, and admit a few subpar students."
1) People notice there is free stuff in tokenism, and they want to be tokens too. Also, existing tokens push for further token privileges, and engage in propaganda to make sure nobody calls out their tokenness.
Like Pinnochio, a lie just keeps growing.
2) The quantity eligible tokens increased due to immigration. Now it's not just blacks, but Hispanics and others.
Also, sexual orientation/gender identity became another protected class that needed new tokens.
3) There was a genuine fear that becoming too Asian would hurt the brand, so an excuse was needed to keep them below 20%. It's easier to say the quota is for the benefit of blacks and against the benefit of Asians.
Contained tokenism only worked in an environment where there was an overwhelming majority group and a manageable minority black population.
> the main purpose of education is signaling.
Thats the prostitution of education. Education teaches the most important facts and methods.
There's attempts to refer to this class of people.
"The laptop class", "The leisure class", etc.
My attempt is "The credential class".
What do you think?
Alt title: Leftism is Braindead
Now the IQs of undergrads have sunk to the level of the general population:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1309142/abstract