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No. It should help a person develop into a free, thoughtful, well-rounded human being. Training narrowly for current market demands can become obsolete quickly. The question should not be: Should education have economic value? But rather: Should economic value be the highest or only value of education?
Of course, engineering etc might have more immediately applicable skills but there is so much value in the Humboldtian ideal of education that merely focusing on economic output is intellectually short-sighted and ultimately impoverishes both individuals and society.
That was the goal maybe in the past when only rich people could afford an education.
And why are so few rich and so many poor?
150 years ago, only the lords could afford a wash-up man, a laundry man, a cook, a tailor, a night out at the theater. Now we have airfryers, instant pots, fast fashion, washing machines, dishwashers and Netflix.
What does that look like for a Humboldtian education?
Her argument is to capitalize on their primary gift(s) while I, while recognizing those particular gifts, want to expose them to a vast variety of experiences and challenges in a broad way. The world changes fast and most recently I have found that the broader experiences and different challenges I have faced in my life give me a distinct advantage over others in my ability to think critically.
Now, there is a bit of truth to pushing a student sometimes, and a parent/guardian will need to understand when those instances are called for, but I see too many parent pushing certain academics or the obvious one - sports - to the point that life is not experienced to a detriment
This is the goal of a primary education.
But society need us to hand down collective knowledge. Economic output is one way to measure that. But more generally, if everyone only consumed education for their personal edification, we'd lose the ability to financially support education in the first place.
We already have trade schools. Do not assume they are merely for blue-collar jobs.
People go to school because they want a better life, the only path to a truly better life in the USA is money. It's really hard to blame students when they've been brought up in a society that has been extremely rotten for their entire lives.
When I was at university (and the years after) some people where saying that university should give you the skills to hold a job, mostly talking about programming in that case (computer engineering degree).
But as AI has shown us those skills (programming) are the first to stop being useful. Learning engineering, architecture, how to think programmatically, ... all these skills are the ones that will survive the culling.
What do these words even mean, and why should taxpayers pay for that? Is there any institution today that teaches you to be a “well-rounded human being?” Do students graduate being able to hunt for food, grow crops, or build a house?
There might be great value in whatever type of “education” you’re talking about. But “education” as a public, taxpayer supported activity is about the economy.
One of my favorites on this topic, the 1963 "A Talk to Teachers", by James Baldwin.
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/baldwin-talk-to-teac...
Now multiply that by a billion, and that's why it's good for the economy.
My guess is thoughtfulness is either something you're born with, or it's something you learn much younger than university
It sounds harsh and maybe a bit gauche, but it's true. A literate and numerate citizenry helps the nation advance. That's the selling point for widespread public education. Airy ideals sound great, but that's also how ideology slides into the public school.
Yeah why would you want your neighbours to be smart and well rounded when they can be dumb and obedient corporate drones instead.
We're already seeing the effect of this "nothing is useful unless it makes ME money" mentality, I personally don't want more of it
> What do these words even mean, and why should taxpayers pay for that?
Let's close social security, healthcare, pensions, it's expensive and a net negative to the economy. All we need is AI and defense actually!
That's been the refrain for longer than either of us have been alive. But free, thoughtful, well-rounded humans tend to starve when they can't find gainful employment and start paying rent. If your first concern isn't practical, no one should even listen to you.
>But rather: Should economic value be the highest or only value of education?
Allow me to translate: I'm rich enough that I don't personally have to be concerned with earning a living, so why don't you enroll in advanced underwater basket-weaving with me at $3400/credit-hour? You can get a student loan for it, and since you'll pay it back it doesn't really matter that it's not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
AI is like that. It gives a much worse service, even to the companies that are buying it, at a slightly lower cost.
But I could see entry level also becoming "internships" more (aka unpaid jobs)
AI agent is not a developer. It won't answer you questions why your database has been removed. This is sadly far from management's point of concern. They are focused on excel columns
As a manager I’d direct you to the actual decision makers for things like this, company leadership teams. They’d blame the market, yet most of the big tech companies laying off or freezing hiring are doing quite well financially so it makes you wonder.
- OK, corporate, where do you think seniors come from? Do the spring forth fully formed from Zeus' head like Athena?
- This might actually present an opportunity for the university CS departments to become the "entry level" training ground that companies never liked being, where students actually write code and learn the basics so they can work effectively with AI in the workforce.
Possibly. If you believe in the economic equivalent of directed evolution, then no matter what humans do, the economy will tip itself towards creating employment opportunities within the broader circumstances.
But if AI plays out the way some hope (and there's no reason to suppose this is impossible), then it will become a substitute (and likely a cheaper one) for every human employment there is. The economy will not evolve to make more jobs "somehow". We actually see this in evolution too, where some species or another without seeing any particular catastrophe just sort of withers away because bad evolutionary decisions made previously make it impossible to reach new environmental niches which might support the population. The so called "path dependence".
https://observer.com/2016/03/goodbye-and-good-riddance-gawke...
2. We rehire base employees at lower wages. Move AI to hire level tasks. AI is now doing the work we said humans will do. Talent drains to other compaines. AI can do certain things every well but can't put it together. Start rehiring talent at lower wages
3. In the end, AI turns out to really be artificial wage competition designed to drive worke salaries down. All of this is subsidized by the government, fund managers and the environment. Billionaires leave earth in spaceship.
I'd say colleges are even more screwed than entry level jobs. Wouldn't count on them saving the day here
I think this is called "work study" and it is already available.
https://studentaid.gov/articles/8-things-federal-work-study/
It puts in stark, unabashed terms the perspectives of the “Robber Baron” class of US “thought leaders” and offers a detailed outline of the roadmap desired by such power players.
It is, without question, the most useful citation for the coming societal unrest which is fomenting. Remember the attacks on Sam Altman? The biggest media driven message from that was “tone down the rhetoric” and this absolutely amps it up past 11, as Spinal Tap would describe it.
It’s incredible and for those with a worthwhile education - myself being one - I’m glad it exists. During incarceration on a bogus Felony charge, I lucked into a copy of “The Red and the Black” by Stendhal. It prompted me to do a bit more study of the French Revolution after release. This article makes me laugh out loud. There is no better explanation for why the pitchforks and torches are a tool of the oppressed with little to no functional voice in their utility or worth or dignity in society.
Great job Mikey!
>Michael Hansen is CEO of Cengage, the global edtech company. He was previously CEO of Elsevier Health Services and held senior positions at Bertelsmann, Proxicom and BCG.
Those graduates ended up doing lower-paid and often non-career jobs like service works. The cliche in the early 2010s was college grads being baristas for a reason.
Those jobs never came back. And it's essentially destroyed that generation who are under crippling debt with no security and no prospects. People in tech did well in the 2010s. Nobody else did. So, on HN a lot of people didn't see this because HN skews towards tech but this was really destructive for society as a whole. We're still feeling the affects of it. It was a key factor in the 2016 election.
It's going to get worse. What people should really understand that there's, so far, only one product for AI and that is labor displacement and wage suppression when we already have historically low savings rate (ie a buffer) [2] and an affordability crisis that is also only going to get worse. How do we have a functioning economy if nobody has any money?
[1]: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...
[2]: https://usafacts.org/articles/why-arent-americans-saving-as-...
This is clearly false, the K shaped economy framing does ring true to me and you are describing the lower half of the K. Those millenials (and younger) with crippling student loans, no savings, and unmarketable skills are a major voting block and will definitely have an impact on policy. The size of the impact will be determined by their level of anger and ability to essentially convince the upper half of the K to go along with wealth transfers (traditionally not easy to do).
It is funny I was a dishwasher for a while $20K income somehow living on that. Then get into tech 5x it and now more poor/in a lot more debt, my own dumb decisions but yeah.
Like the people that win the lottery and end up broke that's me.
> Watch industry stop hiring entry-level jobs
> Wait 20 years for AI slop to reach tipping point, civilization collapsing
> Be only one left that knows how to debug.
-> Profit.