The alternative hypothesis I am advancing is that, in some (perhaps many) cases, people seek out education because they want to know certain things or because they want to be able to do certain things, rather than because they have made an estimate of the overall effect on their finances and decided that it’s positive.
For instance, my own case (not because it’s particularly important or particularly typical, but because I know more about it): I don’t remember ever seriously considering the possibility of not going to university, I don’t remember ever doing any net-financial-effect calculations, I mostly wanted to be an academic and knew academics weren’t particularly well paid, and I did the degree I did because I found the subject fascinating and thought I probably wanted to work in it after graduation.
This was quite a long time ago. I had more ability not to make financial calculations than (e.g.) the typical student in the present-day United States; the government of my country paid my fees, the institution I attended provided accommodation without extra charge, and my parents had no difficulty covering my living costs.
It may be that in the present-day US (and to a lesser extent the present-day UK, which is where I live) the cost of going to university—especially one of the pricier ones—is so high that no one other than the very rich would seriously consider going without doing a careful calculation of expected financial benefit. But it wasn’t true in the UK circa 1990, and neither was it true in the UK in 1944 when Lewis gave that address. And even now, if someone has the good fortune to be able to afford not to choose whether and where and how to go to university mostly on financial grounds, it seems to me that Caplan has not offered (nor tried to offer) very compelling evidence that universities don’t do a good job of teaching you things that might be interesting, useful, mind-expanding, etc., unless Lewis is all wrong about “inner rings”, because it could be that going to a good university and studying hard does make you better at doing your job, but being better at doing your job makes much less difference to your whole-career income than being better at getting into the inner rings.
(Or maybe going to a good university and networking hard makes you better at getting into the inner rings, but tragically it turns out that what determines your whole-career income is actually how good you are at doing your job and university education doesn’t help with that.)
The alternative hypothesis I am advancing is that, in some (perhaps many) cases, people seek out education because they want to know certain things or because they want to be able to do certain things, rather than because they have made an estimate of the overall effect on their finances and decided that it’s positive.
For instance, my own case (not because it’s particularly important or particularly typical, but because I know more about it): I don’t remember ever seriously considering the possibility of not going to university, I don’t remember ever doing any net-financial-effect calculations, I mostly wanted to be an academic and knew academics weren’t particularly well paid, and I did the degree I did because I found the subject fascinating and thought I probably wanted to work in it after graduation.
This was quite a long time ago. I had more ability not to make financial calculations than (e.g.) the typical student in the present-day United States; the government of my country paid my fees, the institution I attended provided accommodation without extra charge, and my parents had no difficulty covering my living costs.
It may be that in the present-day US (and to a lesser extent the present-day UK, which is where I live) the cost of going to university—especially one of the pricier ones—is so high that no one other than the very rich would seriously consider going without doing a careful calculation of expected financial benefit. But it wasn’t true in the UK circa 1990, and neither was it true in the UK in 1944 when Lewis gave that address. And even now, if someone has the good fortune to be able to afford not to choose whether and where and how to go to university mostly on financial grounds, it seems to me that Caplan has not offered (nor tried to offer) very compelling evidence that universities don’t do a good job of teaching you things that might be interesting, useful, mind-expanding, etc., unless Lewis is all wrong about “inner rings”, because it could be that going to a good university and studying hard does make you better at doing your job, but being better at doing your job makes much less difference to your whole-career income than being better at getting into the inner rings.
(Or maybe going to a good university and networking hard makes you better at getting into the inner rings, but tragically it turns out that what determines your whole-career income is actually how good you are at doing your job and university education doesn’t help with that.)