Named for the famous philosophy treatise by the late Harry Frankfurt, The Truth About Bullshit podcast seeks to illuminate our world and the pressing issues therein by calling out 鈥榖ullshit鈥� 鈥� a misrepresentation of truth 鈥� in all its forms.
Today we鈥檙e continuing our series on philosopher Harry Frankfurt鈥檚 seminal work, On Bullshit. Our guest is economist Bryan Caplan, speaking about education and bullshit with a particular focus on his book, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money.
In our modern economy, possessing a college degree feels like a necessity for professional advancement. The age of good jobs for college dropouts is largely gone as more people spend more time in the classroom, writing papers, taking tests, and, of course, goofing off. On the one hand, policymakers celebrate the additional degrees attained by more people. Surely a more educated society means a more intelligent and productive one. It鈥檚 no secret that college grads make more money than dropouts, and high school grads make more than those who didn鈥檛 complete 12th grade.
Why is this the case? Does more education truly endow students with the skills necessary to succeed in the working world, or does education merely serve to certify that an individual has the intelligence and people skills needed to succeed? If the primary value of education is to signal conformity to employers鈥� expectations, then education as we know it is a waste of time, energy, and money.
Degrees range in practicality, but most鈥攍ike economics鈥攈ardly spend time teaching the kinds of skills that translate to the jobs most graduates actually take. As Bryan puts it, 鈥淎s far as I can tell, the only marketable skill I teach is how to be an economics professor.鈥� The world certainly needs some economics professors, but the sentiment behind the point reflects an undeniable dirty little secret. Professors, by and large, teach students about their favorite subjects, not skills for career success.
For years, I鈥檝e trumpeted the line that the purpose of higher education is not to teach skills but rather to teach students how to think. The Case Against Education deflates this argument with statistics and great humor. As the type of student who loved taking Russian literature, political philosophy, and economic history, I鈥檓 thrilled to speak with Bryan Caplan about bullshit and education.
Bryan Caplan is professor of economics at George Mason University.
Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New 快色直播 Network.