The Case Against Education
Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
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The Case Against Education
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Narrated by:
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Allan Robertson
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By:
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Bryan Caplan
About this listen
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.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2018 Princeton University Press (P)2018 Audible, Inc.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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- andrew
- 02-07-2019
Read the title
As the author himself states this is the case against education, its biased in a way to make education look like a bad investment. It should be taken with more diverse views and the case for education is easy to come by as its fairly popular to support more education.
I agree with some of the points in this book and think that many governments should rethink the way they structure and fund education, but I wouldn't say that the education system is a complete waste of time and money.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Ben Preston
- 22-10-2018
Interesting and engaging
A very thought provoking book. I'm not convinced that the signaling effect is as large as Caplan estimates but it is clear that there is a signalling effect. I would love to see sone international comparisons.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- terry
- 16-08-2018
Massive Libertarian bias
The narrator was great.
The book, however, was a tale of two halves. Brian begins with making a compelling case I favour of his main thesis that education is 80% signalling for the labour market and 20% building of human capital. If he had stopped there this could have been a good book. I was largely convinced of his signalling arguments.
However, the book takes a sharp turn into the fictional fairytale world of Libertarianism once he begins making conclusions and presenting his arguments for solutions. Brian makes large leaps of logic defying assumptions to tie the facts presented in the 1st two-thirds of the book with the conclusions he draws in the final third.
He frequently takes the line that his Libertarian beliefs are a given and never provides any evidence to back them up.
If you are a Libertarian then perhaps this book will provide further support for your hopelessly naive beliefs.
If you are not Libertarian, however, then the signalling portion of the book is a worthwhile read. The rest, though, is nonsense.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 18-01-2019
terrible book
this book is absolutely useless. a psychologist can do an IQ test on you that tells you your strengths and weaknesses. everything in this book is garbage.
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