Some portion of jobs pay you like you’re a college graduate but don’t hire based on signalling. The marginal individual would be better served by going after those jobs instead of going to college.
Starting a business is another way for the marginal individual to outperform college as an investment.
Caplan doesn’t consider alternatives to college besides jumping into the labor force (I believe you would agree that, as an example, taking a welding course is one such alternative).
You can’t just count lost earnings as a “cost” if you’re going to actually consider these other options.
People go to college for other reasons besides money.
Here’s my response:
1.
I get what you’re saying here—in fact I was offered a software engineering job out of high school and turned it down. I a friend who made the same decision. I don’t think this argument works overall, though, for three reasons. First, getting your foot in the door is decently challenging. Second, it limits your employment options in a way that’s not practical. Third, college is an extremely good value proposition for the sort of person who could get a high paying job out of high school.
So how could you get your foot in the door? In my case, a former teacher got me an internship that was meant for a college student—then I had to interview well. In the case of my friend, he had some really impressive projects on GitHub which got him noticed (for a summer job). So there’s an element of luck (having connections) or perhaps innate talent (not many people, regardless of if they have a degree, build a really interesting solo project). Luck is luck, but perhaps a motivated person of average talent could build a solo project good enough to land them a job with no degree. Doing so, however, is a risky proposition. You’d be investing a lot of time and effort into a chance for a job. At the same time, you wouldn’t have a good understanding of the odds because it’s such an uncommon path.
Even if you landed one of those jobs, there’s a good chance it would be far away from your family because companies that are willing to hire someone straight out of high school are so few and far between. Even for someone who’s willing to move away from family, they’d then need to have the money saved up to make that leap. And if you do get the job? Better hope you don’t get fired. If so, you’ll have extremely limited employment options compared to someone with a degree because 99% of employers are simply going to throw away your resume. You may have to uproot your life and move again.
Lastly, for the few people who are in a really good position to get a high paying job out of high school, college is a really good value proposition. If you’re impressive enough to land that job, you can probably also get a merit-based scholarship. You can also go to a top-tier school where you’ll be able to marry rich (as Caplan discusses), network, and take advantages of opportunities for research and entrepreneurship. Alternatively, you might be able to skate by without putting a lot of hours in and use your free time for something else, further reducing the opportunity cost of college.
2.
Only 40% of small businesses turn a profit (https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/small-business-statistics/). A 60% chance of making no money or losing money is an unacceptable risk for 18 year olds. Where are the savings accounts that are going to pay for their food and housing if they aren’t making an income?
Plus, they’d need funding. A business loan for a new entrepreneur out of high school is not a thing. They look at your personal credit score. They may require collateral. SBA loans look at invested equity.
VC-backed ventures are even riskier. Founders typically work for nothing for years (which recent high school grads just can’t do because they don’t have money saved up to live on) for a slim shot at getting rich.
Overall, entrepreneurship is a high risk, high reward option which is not a similar value proposition to college.
3.
Caplan mentions this in chapter 8. Caplan essentially argues that vocational education also pays. Comparing between vocational and collegiate education is challenging due limited data.
4.
If you don’t count opportunity costs, doesn’t that make college look even better?
5.
I agree with you—Caplan is way too dismissive of this.
OK. Would you write a thesis statement that you think is true, and expect me to disagree with, that you’d like to debate? (Or a thesis for me that you want to refute would also work.) So we can clarify what we’re debating.
I didn’t understand that by “debate” you meant an extended back and forth. I considered my response to be the debate. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I am not interested in what I think you are looking for.
My response to Error 1:
As I understand it your key points are this:
Some portion of jobs pay you like you’re a college graduate but don’t hire based on signalling. The marginal individual would be better served by going after those jobs instead of going to college.
Starting a business is another way for the marginal individual to outperform college as an investment.
Caplan doesn’t consider alternatives to college besides jumping into the labor force (I believe you would agree that, as an example, taking a welding course is one such alternative).
You can’t just count lost earnings as a “cost” if you’re going to actually consider these other options.
People go to college for other reasons besides money.
Here’s my response:
1.
I get what you’re saying here—in fact I was offered a software engineering job out of high school and turned it down. I a friend who made the same decision. I don’t think this argument works overall, though, for three reasons. First, getting your foot in the door is decently challenging. Second, it limits your employment options in a way that’s not practical. Third, college is an extremely good value proposition for the sort of person who could get a high paying job out of high school.
So how could you get your foot in the door? In my case, a former teacher got me an internship that was meant for a college student—then I had to interview well. In the case of my friend, he had some really impressive projects on GitHub which got him noticed (for a summer job). So there’s an element of luck (having connections) or perhaps innate talent (not many people, regardless of if they have a degree, build a really interesting solo project). Luck is luck, but perhaps a motivated person of average talent could build a solo project good enough to land them a job with no degree. Doing so, however, is a risky proposition. You’d be investing a lot of time and effort into a chance for a job. At the same time, you wouldn’t have a good understanding of the odds because it’s such an uncommon path.
Even if you landed one of those jobs, there’s a good chance it would be far away from your family because companies that are willing to hire someone straight out of high school are so few and far between. Even for someone who’s willing to move away from family, they’d then need to have the money saved up to make that leap. And if you do get the job? Better hope you don’t get fired. If so, you’ll have extremely limited employment options compared to someone with a degree because 99% of employers are simply going to throw away your resume. You may have to uproot your life and move again.
Lastly, for the few people who are in a really good position to get a high paying job out of high school, college is a really good value proposition. If you’re impressive enough to land that job, you can probably also get a merit-based scholarship. You can also go to a top-tier school where you’ll be able to marry rich (as Caplan discusses), network, and take advantages of opportunities for research and entrepreneurship. Alternatively, you might be able to skate by without putting a lot of hours in and use your free time for something else, further reducing the opportunity cost of college.
2.
Only 40% of small businesses turn a profit (https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/small-business-statistics/). A 60% chance of making no money or losing money is an unacceptable risk for 18 year olds. Where are the savings accounts that are going to pay for their food and housing if they aren’t making an income?
Plus, they’d need funding. A business loan for a new entrepreneur out of high school is not a thing. They look at your personal credit score. They may require collateral. SBA loans look at invested equity.
VC-backed ventures are even riskier. Founders typically work for nothing for years (which recent high school grads just can’t do because they don’t have money saved up to live on) for a slim shot at getting rich.
Overall, entrepreneurship is a high risk, high reward option which is not a similar value proposition to college.
3.
Caplan mentions this in chapter 8. Caplan essentially argues that vocational education also pays. Comparing between vocational and collegiate education is challenging due limited data.
4.
If you don’t count opportunity costs, doesn’t that make college look even better?
5.
I agree with you—Caplan is way too dismissive of this.
Are you looking to have a debate with me or just sharing your thoughts? Either way is fine; I just want to clarify.
Should have specified. That was meant as my debate response under the rules.
OK. Would you write a thesis statement that you think is true, and expect me to disagree with, that you’d like to debate? (Or a thesis for me that you want to refute would also work.) So we can clarify what we’re debating.
I didn’t understand that by “debate” you meant an extended back and forth. I considered my response to be the debate. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I am not interested in what I think you are looking for.