Something's Wrong When the Diploma Is Worth More Than the Education

Townhall.com ^ | March 15, 2019 | Jonah Goldberg

[Kaslin]

The college admissions scandal should be the populist issue of our time.

Most of the talk in our politics about how "the system is rigged" is incredibly abstract and symbolic. But this is infuriatingly concrete.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed a massive effort by wealthy parents and a shady "admissions consultant" to bribe and cheat their way into getting kids into a slew of elite schools.

Prosecutors say William Singer, the ringleader of the operation, sold two forms of services. For tens of thousands of dollars, parents could pay for their kids to have a proctor correct their incorrect answers as they took the SAT. Or, if that wouldn't do the trick, parents could pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to bribe coaches at elite schools to designate applicants as desired athletes, thus circumventing the minimum requirements for grades and test scores.

In one case, a California family allegedly paid $1.2 million to Singer, who in turn allegedly paid Rudy Meredith, the women's soccer coach at Yale, $400,000 to claim that the family's daughter was a coveted recruit even though she didn't play at all.

This scandal is a staggering indictment of higher education, and American education policy generally. Virtually every constituency in American life has good reason to be rankled. Defenders of affirmative action for various minority groups are rightly livid about this effort, by mostly rich white people who already have every advantage imaginable, to game the system. Opponents of affirmative action who argue that merit alone should determine admissions have every reason to be outraged as well.

For both groups, and for everyone between the two extremes, the pressure to get kids into the best college possible -- and then figure out how to pay for it -- is a source of incredible anxiety.

But the scandal goes beyond just these issues. It is also a searing indictment of the value of an elite college education in the first place (and the ridiculous emphasis schools place on collegiate sports). None of these parents seemed remotely concerned about whether their kids could hack it once they got into their dream schools -- and rightly so.

George Mason economics professor Bryan Caplan, in his book "The Case Against Education," makes a compelling case that most of the value in diplomas from elite colleges isn't in the education they allegedly represent but in the cultural or social "signaling" they convey.

Imagine you're deposited on a desert island, forced to fend for yourself. Would you rather have the knowledge that comes with taking a survival training course, or just the piece of paper that says you took the course? Obviously, you'd rather know how to identify poisonous plants and sources of water than have a diploma that says you know how to do things you can't do. Now, ask yourself: Would you rather have the Yale education without the diploma, or the diploma without the education?

From an economic perspective, the piece of paper is vastly more valuable than the education, particularly in the humanities (and Caplan runs through the numbers to demonstrate this). The paper opens doors and gets you callbacks from employers and entree into elite social circles where who you know matters more than what you know. The education might make you a better person, but the parchment is the ticket to opportunity. It's no guarantee of success, but it's a profound hedge against failure.

Parents know this, and parents without special advantages -- wealth, fame, connections -- resent it.

As a matter of public policy, the way we tell everyone they should go to college, even if it means incurring crushing debt, is a scandal. College isn't for everyone, and it isn't necessary for many careers or vocations -- and shouldn't be necessary for many others.

If there's a maxim that should serve as a golden rule for policymakers, it's this: Complexity is a subsidy. The more complex we make a system, the more it rewards people with the resources -- social, cognitive, political or financial -- to navigate them. A system that rewards subjective priorities -- in the name of diversity, athletics, social justice, donations, preferences for legacy students, whatever -- creates opportunities for bureaucrats, parents and students to game the system.

You're never going to create a system where some parents won't do anything and everything to help their kids. All you can do is create a system that makes it more difficult to cheat or exploit loopholes. That requires clear, simple rules applicable to everyone.

[madison10]

See Chelsea Clinton and AOC for reference.

[Biggirl]

Tip of the iceberg.

[brownsfan]

“See Chelsea Clinton and AOC for reference.”

Chelsea Clinton is a rocket surgeon compared to AOC.

AOC may have a degree, much to my amazement, but she clearly wasn’t educated.

[alancarp]

Here kid... I want you out of the house: here’s $1.2 million. That’s all you get... ever. Do with it as you will. Good luck.

[FlingWingFlyer]

As another wise Freeper once told me here, “a lot of college diplomas are nothing more than tuition receipts.”

[bert]

the education can not really be evaluated

those lacking education yell the loudest about the lack of value for an education

Ubiquitous break room comment.....”and I told that engineer blah blah blah”

[Jewbacca]

AOC, in particular. Boston university is a very good school. 100 years ago when I went to MIT, we often shared professors with BU. If you missed a class you could generally catch the lecture at the other school. We had the same syllabus. Because I lived in Brookline, I would do this a fair amount.

Our study group was mixed MIT and BU kids. Everybody seemed smarter than I was.

Apparently affirmative action folks slip through.

[ClearCase_guy]

I would dearly love the US Dept of Education to be mandated to create streaming education services suitable for home use.

Find a great teachers, video tape them lecturing on Math, History, English, Civics — everything. Not just one teacher for a topic — maybe 4 or 5. You see someone teaching fractions, and your kid doesn’t “get it”? Okay, we have other teachers teaching fractions in a different style — maybe one of those will help your child.

Build a library of 10,000 video lectures. Spend that money. Spend it once. And then this country will have to spend virtually nothing more on education for 100 years or more. And your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will learn to do math the way you learned it. From the same excellent teacher. And the history books won’t change. And grammar rules won’t be forgotten.

Cheap, consistent, high quality education series so that home schooling can replace government schools. And change the tax code so that families can afford to have one parent (male or female) stay home and manage the family the way families are supposed to be managed (we’ll need a video lecture series on that).

[utahagen]

Goldberg’s right, but there’s not enough emphasis on the unethical behavior of the defendants. There’s a moral rot at the core of our culture.

[redfreedom]

I don’t think Ms Clinton fits this scenario. None of the Clintons are stupid, crooked, yes. AOC defines a new low for stupidity and being proud of it.

It’s also my opinion the Clinton’s want power and money, but do not necessarily want their own country completely destroyed to get it.

AOC is a box of rocks being manipulated by those that do want our country destroyed. She’s just too stupid to figure it out and loves all the attention she’s getting while being a useful idiot, literally.

If we ever had to vote on the lesser of two evils, I’d vote Chelsea.

[oincobx]

We are in a winner take all economy. From 2000 to 2018, wage growth was strongest for the highest-wage workers, continuing the trend in rising wage inequality over the last four decades. The top 10% is doing what it can to keep their kids there.

[HotHunt]

AO-C went to Boston College, not Boston University.

[central_va]

The best thing that could happen is for the SCOTUS to overturn Griggs vs Duke Power Co.

[crosdaddy]

No, she went to BU.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Picture a woman at a cocktail party saying “My son the doctor.” That’s what they get out of it. I think it was Bigger Thomas’ appeal in ‘Native Son.’ The rich folk had so much money and felt they weren’t good people for it so they showed off their beautiful children(daughters). Gave them the feeling they weren’t so bad because how could they be bad if their children were so beautiful-and smart.

[frnewsjunkie]

This selective and cheating to get into college has been going on for a long time. obama’s daughter is going to Harvard... and do I think she got there being the president’s daughter, yes!

I had 2 sons who were top in their classes. one graduated valedictorian with nothing on his record but A’s and trophies for being top in everything. One had a brain that recorded everthing and he was top in class of 520 students.. with a very high SAT score, he went on to college from the 11th grade and went on to law school. There was NO help for these 2 sons in college. Even in that time period, you had to know someone or someone had to know how to pull strings to get those scholarships. I know it was possible, but we didn’t know how to pull the strings and their dad would not cheat for anything... not even free college.

so today, these kids get free rides and it isn’t going well with the public. There is cheating everywhere in everything... it goes on until SOMEONE gets brave enough to tackle it.

[Liz]

Obama’s kids got in easy——they applied as children of a former black foreign exchange student. (/s)

"Teaching girls" is all the rage among progressives.
The corrupt Obamas had the key to scam $100 million of our tax dollars.

====================================

Then-F/L Michele, her mother and daughters in the Moroccan palace.

Look at that smile----Obama gave her $100 million tax dollars----"to teach Muslim girls in Morocco."

AND GET THIS: The $100 mill is to be held by the Obama Foundation, to be doled out when necessary (cue laugh machine here).

==========================================

NOTE WELL: The $100 million "to teach Muslim girls" came out of the State Dept's Millenium Challenge Fund
(Hillary's fave slush fund).

ACTION NOW: Demand the books be opened----where are the Millenium funds going.

Call President Trump: Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414

US CONGRESS SWITCHBOARD: (202) 224-3121

U.S. Department of Justice

Comment Line: 202-353-1555 Switchboard: 202-514-2000

[ClearCase_guy]

I would avoid that kind of talk.

The people who are in the top 10% today are not likely to stay in the top 10%. And the people in the bottom 10% are not likely to stay in the bottom 10%. And some in the top will move to the bottom, and some in the bottom will move to the top. This is a very dynamic society. This comment is not about “2019”. This has been true in America for a long time, and there is no reason to think it will not continue to be true.

The top 10% is rising faster? This means nothing, because the people who are affected by that factoid keep changing. Income inequality is not an actual problem — it’s just a rhetorical device used by the Left.

[SMARTY]

‘Academia’ is a swamp like no other... it smells to high heaven and on a par with the DC swamp!

Has nothing in America escaped corruption?