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The Case Against Education
- Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 11 hrs
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Publisher's summary
Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education
Despite being immensely popular - and immensely lucrative - education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity - in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee.
Learn why students hunt for easy A's and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.
Caplan draws on the latest social science to show how the labor market values grades over knowledge and why the more education your rivals have, the more you need to impress employers. He explains why graduation is our society's top conformity signal and why even the most useless degrees can certify employability. He advocates two major policy responses. The first is educational austerity. Government needs to sharply cut education funding to curb this wasteful rat race. The second is more vocational education, because practical skills are more socially valuable than teaching students how to outshine their peers.
Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense - The Case Against Education points the way.
Cover design by Leslie Flis.
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Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life - from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare - was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension.
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How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
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The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.
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Marco Rubio's parents came to the United States in 1956. The country they found was truly a land of opportunity, where hardworking people with grade school educations could afford a home, a car, and college for their kids. A country where maids and bartenders could raise doctors, lawyers, small-business owners, and maybe even a US senator. That was the American Dream - our country's central promise to its people.
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Outstanding recitation of conservatism!
- By GLENNO on 08-06-15
By: Arthur C. Brooks
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What listeners say about The Case Against Education
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- W. Morgan
- 08-06-18
Excellent. Worth a listen - especially today.
I found this to be a compelling case against the current system of government education in the United States.The author certainly presented his argument well and supported his points. He did tire me a bit about signalling - but it's a major problem and central to much of the argument being made.
Educators and those interested in discussions of the problems in the system will likely find food for thought here.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Oly Joe II
- 02-26-20
Sadly, this book tells us what we already knew or at least suspected.
True insight into the education I received starting in 1949. I was a very good student squandered on things I have never used subsequently. I have family that have used home schooling with great success. Now they are starting internet college classes and are doing very well.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mark Wasmuth
- 12-18-19
very informative
this was a very informative book to gives you a different perspective on education I enjoyed it gives me a lot to think about especially since I have two teenage kids
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robert
- 09-27-18
Loved this. Changed my mind.
Excellent. Definitely an original argument that is heavily backed by data. I didn’t give the story 5 stars because I thought the dialogue section at the end was too much of a rehash of the earlier chapters.
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- Richard
- 02-08-22
Economic view of education
Professor of economics gives a wonderful lecture on the signaling model of education. Definitely worth a listen.
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- Austin Ashwill
- 06-21-22
required reading for parents
Required reading for parents who want to be able to offer sensible education advice to their children.
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- Kyrie Eleison
- 07-21-23
A PHD Thesis With A Breath of Fresh Air
For the lay person like myself it's easy to get lost in the early intellectual slog of numbers and terms. Fortunately Caplan sprinkles diamonds throughout the early part of this work to get you thru the technicals as he lays down foundations for each arguement.
Speaking of each arguement, Caplan does a very good job of covering not only the arguements he supports but also the ones that attempt to counter him. The fresh air is he readily admits when he's filling in information gaps, why he fills those gaps in the way he does and includes common sense in his points.
Wrapping up, Caplan is speaking to each of us who know our education has deep problems regardless of our personal whys. He then attempts to cover every thought about why we believe the problems are what they are. Then he gives suggestions about how to correct these problems. Caplans personal views may be viewed as 'extreme' but it's time to have this 'extreme' discussion and this book provides each person the information to look inward so this discussion can be had. Long but worth the credit. Enjoy!!
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- John Medeiros
- 05-29-21
Explained my wasted education perfectly
Brain has done an remarkable job explaining my so much is a waste and so many people I know have never used there college degrees.
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- Tj
- 04-26-19
students, parents, educators and policy makers
What a remarkable work which objectively crystalizes the status quo such that real progress may at least be credibly entertained
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- Zac
- 12-16-21
Seductive title...listen on
Bravo author, on the title. What a provocative enticement to go on this well thought out and thorough evaluation of the US education system from an economics professor who has benefitted from the critically analyzed commodity that is education. A quant, contrarian and somewhat of a pedant, Caplan deconstructs, reconstructs and theorizes compellingly NOT against education per se, but against wasteful education. Effectively, the essay is like doing one big regression equation with many variables related to the education system and assigning values to the components that ADD to the economy, employment etc., and suggests streamlining from the curriculum that which is more noise or detracts from employability and benefit from the employment and the economy. He is not rigid and even offers means of deriving the benefits from more obscure curriculum content - but just not on the government's subsidized dime. Fair enough I say! Would have loved to have accessed more of the raw data myself - I'm like that and perhaps, as a non American, to have had a comparison of the generalizability of Capaln's studies with respect to other educational systems (I anticipate significant robustness). Finally, I initially cringed, and then really enjoyed the author's symposium / tea party with imaginary stereotypes to summarize and consolidate the main arguments of his thesis.
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