<story><title>Governments have overestimated the economic returns of higher education</title><url>https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/03/economist-explains-0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>OtterCoder</author><text>California and New England are so divorced from the concerns and ethos of the &amp;#x27;flyover&amp;#x27; states that they may as well be on another planet. You may not think of yourself as elitist, but from the perspective of a Midwesterner, you almost certainly are.</text></item><item><author>dhimes</author><text>What is a &amp;quot;coastal elitist?&amp;quot;  I&amp;#x27;ve never heard that term.  Since I live on the coast and have a few liberal friends, I know what a &amp;quot;coastal liberal&amp;quot; is.  But &amp;quot;coastal elitist?&amp;quot;  The only people I know who fit that bill are finance guys, and only a few at that.</text></item><item><author>motohagiography</author><text>I like to summarize a particular coastal elitist view as, &amp;quot;Let them eat college.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>This is what Taleb has said for years. Wealth leads to education. Education does not necessarily, or even commonly, lead to wealth.&lt;p&gt;If you gain wealth but do not come from an aristocratic or &amp;quot;respected family in society&amp;quot; background, the way to gain prestige is by paying for education for yourself or your children. Buying your kids a degree is the modern day equivalent of buying a venal office in 1500&amp;#x27;s France or Spain.&lt;p&gt;(Except Venal offices probably guaranteed a little more ROI in addition to the status!)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Venal_office&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Venal_office&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>kodis</author><text>I suspect that at least some of this is due to confusing cause with effect: people see that most highly successful people have a collage degree, and wrongly conclude that anyone with a collage degree will be highly successful.&lt;p&gt;A few of the other problems with this increased drive to send people to collage is that now a collage degree is required -- as the article points out -- as a signal of employability even for jobs where a high school education would suffice; a drive away from trade school, even when a job in the trades pays well and is quite secure; and of course the debt load that comes with collage, even for a degree is in a field with little chance of providing a good return on the cost of the degree.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>notfromhere</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not the Midwest, it&amp;#x27;s rural areas everywhere. Coastal elite is just code word for urbanite.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if people are aware, but the Midwest does have cities and its city dwellers have more in common with city dwellers on either coast than they do with rural areas in their own state.</text></comment>
<story><title>Governments have overestimated the economic returns of higher education</title><url>https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/03/economist-explains-0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>OtterCoder</author><text>California and New England are so divorced from the concerns and ethos of the &amp;#x27;flyover&amp;#x27; states that they may as well be on another planet. You may not think of yourself as elitist, but from the perspective of a Midwesterner, you almost certainly are.</text></item><item><author>dhimes</author><text>What is a &amp;quot;coastal elitist?&amp;quot;  I&amp;#x27;ve never heard that term.  Since I live on the coast and have a few liberal friends, I know what a &amp;quot;coastal liberal&amp;quot; is.  But &amp;quot;coastal elitist?&amp;quot;  The only people I know who fit that bill are finance guys, and only a few at that.</text></item><item><author>motohagiography</author><text>I like to summarize a particular coastal elitist view as, &amp;quot;Let them eat college.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>This is what Taleb has said for years. Wealth leads to education. Education does not necessarily, or even commonly, lead to wealth.&lt;p&gt;If you gain wealth but do not come from an aristocratic or &amp;quot;respected family in society&amp;quot; background, the way to gain prestige is by paying for education for yourself or your children. Buying your kids a degree is the modern day equivalent of buying a venal office in 1500&amp;#x27;s France or Spain.&lt;p&gt;(Except Venal offices probably guaranteed a little more ROI in addition to the status!)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Venal_office&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Venal_office&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>kodis</author><text>I suspect that at least some of this is due to confusing cause with effect: people see that most highly successful people have a collage degree, and wrongly conclude that anyone with a collage degree will be highly successful.&lt;p&gt;A few of the other problems with this increased drive to send people to collage is that now a collage degree is required -- as the article points out -- as a signal of employability even for jobs where a high school education would suffice; a drive away from trade school, even when a job in the trades pays well and is quite secure; and of course the debt load that comes with collage, even for a degree is in a field with little chance of providing a good return on the cost of the degree.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dnomad</author><text>Yeah those damned coastal elites fighting for universal healthcare and more education and higher minimum wages.&lt;p&gt;The reality is that the only real &amp;quot;elites&amp;quot; are these fantasists who&amp;#x27;ve bought into this narrative and actually believe they are the &amp;quot;Real Americans (tm).&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s a childish delusion that is only sustainable by an even more delusional pride.</text></comment>