Williams: The Miseducation of America

Armstrong Williams

Townhall - The true test of whether an education is an investment or merely a form of conspicuous consumption is whether the degree or skills one learns is likely to increase one’s earning ability by more than the (time and monetary) cost of the education. This seems like a simple process to gauge – much like a back of the envelope computation – but it is something that many college graduates fail to clearly consider before incurring huge debts and spending years collecting degrees. While college graduates earn on average more than non-graduates, they tend to enter the work force later with more debt. This is especially the case with people that spend on ‘name brand’ educations. It is increasingly clear that there is a disconnection between the price and the value of higher education.
It’s obvious by now that the latest collapse of the U.S. stock market and the ensuing recession was spearheaded by experts – those same people who received fancy degrees from Ivy League institutions. They sold the public on their complex mathematical models purporting to show huge profits – all the while masking the risk of a total blow up. In many respects, this is the societal effect of a miseducated population. It is the result of an over-reliance by many people on the advice of experts, and the reliance of those experts on theoretical constructs that have little bearing on the real world. It is a classic case of mistaking the map for the territory. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Williams: The Miseducation of America