David Leonhardt has a good analysis in today’s NY Times. (The Great Wage Slowdown of the 21st Century – NYTimes.com) He realizes the importance of education to economic growth and decreasing inequality. Yet he makes the same mistake that so many make. I commented.
“The accuracy of the conclusions reached here are almost completely erased by one anachronistic mistake – a mistake that Thomas Piketty did not make, when he wrote that,
“…Knowledge and skill diffusion is the key to overall productivity growth as well as the reduction of inequality…” (from “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, p. 21)
Note his use of “Knowledge”, not “degree”.
Using “degrees” to measure “knowledge” is misleading.
Every time a writer uses the word “degree”, he or she needs to cite Arum and Roksa’s “Academically Adrift”. They show that a 1960’s degree required about 25 hours a week of study and yielded a one sigma gain in critical thinking; whereas, today’s so-called “degree” requires only about 12 hours of study a week (much of which is done in “groups”), and yields a .07 gain in critical thinking. (These numbers actually seem to indicate a decrease in total knowledge and skill.)
What Arum and Roksa show, I have personally seen as a math professor. Confusing “degree” with “education” will only allow unscrupulous institutions to get richer while we are getting dumber as a society, and inequality increases.
Yes, by increasing the spread of knowledge, we can increase economic growth, inequality and a more civil society; but without decreasing the unscrupulous behavior of many of our colleges and universities (non-profit ones, too), we will continue our slide into stagnation and inequality. Or we can just hope that Piketty is wrong.
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