There’s swirling argument going on over at OTB (again) over the value of higher education. My own reactions are extensive enough I thought I’d put them here.
Let’s first clear the air a bit by defining the parameters of the discussion. The post at OTB is entitled “Is College a Scam?” I think that to come at that question reasonably we’ll need to constrain what we’ve discussing a bit. Let’s divide the population into four groups. The first group is people who intend to pursue careers in the professions, especially professions that require post-graduate education (e.g. physicians, dentists, lawyers, architects, etc.). To be able to succeed in that ambition they’ll need intelligence slightly above the median and will need to receive an undergraduate degree with pretty high marks, especially for the more competitive fields.
For this group college education is necessary to their plans. For some of the fields, e.g. physicians, dentists, higher education has, historically, definitely not been “a scam”. Their return on investment is excellent. For lawyers the situation is more complex. Returns (as measured by incomes) for lawyers occur in a bimodal distribution. Most of those in the upper portion of that distribution are graduates of the top law schools, editors of legal review, etc. While their return on investment for higher education is excellent, the return on investment for those in the lower portion of the distribution whose median income is $35,000 a year, to the extent that higher education is a means towards the end of the income of those in that higher portion of the distribution, higher education has been at best a poor investment and at worst a scam.
The second group is composed of individuals with intelligences significantly above the median who don’t plan on pursuing the professions. These are the Bill Gateses, Mark Zuckerbergs, and so on. For them higher education is a waste of time. They can achieve their objectives in other ways. They shouldn’t be held out as examples to emulate: they’re exceptions, not the rule.
The third group is composed of those with intelligences that are significantly below the median. If they gain admission to college at all, they will find college such a grueling and unrewarding experience that, at least IMO, they are unlikely to graduate. It would certainly require enormous determination. I believe that for most of those in this group higher education is a scam.
The fourth group is composed of those with median intelligences plus or minus a standard deviation. That’s about half the population and I think that’s really the group that we’re discussing. This group is capable of graduating and achieving some degree of mastery of the information that is taught. Without great determination, they are unlikely either to be admitted to post-graduate education or, if admitted, master the information.
Rather than answer the question of the worthwhileness of higher education for this group directly I think I’d express my thoughts about the worthwhileness of higher education this way. For one thing I’d really like to see some more refined data on return on investment. Something that controls for age, parental income, fields in which incomes are normally distributed, and any number of other factors.
However, rather than argue about whether higher education is a good investment for most people, why not focus our attentions on making it a better investment? Through the application of technology we should be able to re-invent higher education so that it is significantly less expensive, maybe free, more rigorous, and more effective. That’s an objective that I think a state or a cooperative of states should be able to accomplish.
Update
It occurs to me that there’s a fine distinction I was trying to make that may have been lost. I don’t anybody should be prohibited from seeking higher education, however, I don’t think that everybody should be encouraged to seek it, either. I don’t think that higher education should be a prerequisite for a decent life. I think that we don’t do nearly enough to ensure that every person finds his or her highest and best use and that higher education is not completely relevant to that.
Whether or not college is scam also depends on the financing. It seems like more people are being rendered virtual serfs by loans they don’t appear likely to be able to pay back. I don’t have a big issue with Obama increasing Pell Grants, particularly where many state governments and private charities have cut back on financial aid, but the subisidies increase the cost problem if they are not coupled with efforts to improve efficiency.
I would like to think that partially removing the nondeductibility of student loans could provide an opening to influence lenders to take into consideration ROI in the course of study. Lenders might be more objective in that sort of evaluation than the government, but ultimately if loan terms average over 25 years from graduation, can anybody foresee the preferred course of study over that term?
I’d rather come at that problem by reducing the costs rather than by increasing the subsidies. I think part of the problem is that the subsidies have been driving the costs up.
I’ve long called for reinvention. Given that I started with Christensen’s books on corporate innovation, I was interested to see how his newer publications on education mapped to my suspicions.
I think pretty well, PDF
Christensen agrees with me and Dave that it’s costs. If you ask me, financing has been a dead end.
I have at this moment time only for a fly-by, but I wonder, as an initial salvo, what the definition of above average intelligence is.
Newton is often cited as having an IQ of about 170. I have a partner who tells me he was measured at 152. Having worked with him for 13 years I have no reason to doubt him. Clinton is cited at about 150. Bush and Obama have been cited at about 129.
Just exactly what is a normal IQ and a standard deviation?
Only by partisans. The scant actual documentation suggests much, much lower. However, I think that the guy has qualities that are better than intelligence, at least for a president: savvy and charisma.
Normal IQ is plus or minus one standard deviation. 100 is the median. 15 is the standard deviation. IIRC, the median IQ for physicians is a bit over a standard deviation, something like 120 and the standard deviation from that about 8 points.
I think that practically all presidents are roughly in the “professional class” as far as intelligence goes. Being really brilliant is unusual; so is being genuinely slow. We’ve had a couple of truly brilliant presidents, e.g. Jefferson. At least one who in all likelihood was pretty dumb: Harding. Most of the stories of exceptional brilliance or exceptional stupidity for this or that president is partisan posturing.
Just for grins and I don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect that the highest IQ among my commenters may well be Michael R. I also should mention my skepticism of any IQs measured above three standard deviations. I strongly doubt that the tools are that discriminating.
It wouldn’t surprise me that Clinton’s age-20 IQ was 150. As minds lose plasticity the raw number matters less.
But then I’m not a huge IQ fan. It was invented because they wanted a number, not because intelligence should be reduced to a number. There are too many flavors.
I think that IQ measures something I’m just not sure what it is. Pre-1995 SAT scores are too closely correlated with IQs for it to be completely meaningless. And the studies of IQs within occupations is suggestive, if nothing else.
Shrug. When they screened me for accelerated classes, they asked me to explain biblical parables. I said “but we covered this last week in sunday school.” They said “just answer the question.”
The “you’ve got a 3 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket” questions were at least culture-neutral.
I didn’t expect such a quick response. So I’m still here. But you did, naturally, perceive the point I was going to. Its more than raw intelligence.
Never liked Clinton. Thought him a liar and immoral. But I never ever thought him not to be an intelligent man. But you correctly point out other attributes that made him (and others in their respective fields) successful. And that was where I was going.
I’m surprised at your citation of the professional class as perhaps IQ of 120 plus 8 to 16. Seems low. My mother tells me that I was tested earlier in life and was 140. I have no idea if this was accurate etc. Have never bothered to retest since I don’t really care; I know so many other issues that pertain to success. Which brings me to my point. My mother also tells me that my sister tested higher. And yet she ran away from home at 15, married a security guard from KY and totally screwed up her life. She has subsequently somewhat recovered but there you have it. IQ can mean nothing, there is so much more to the equation.
And since I just can’t resist. we currently have a president who is obviously bright, and liguisitically proficient, but he’s a bust as a manager and leader. It was predictable, and predicted, by some, like me.
Gotta go…..
As if Michael R didn’t already have an insufferable ego to begin with . . .
There’s swirling argument going on over at OTB (again) over the value of higher education.
Higher education is worthless. For example, I continue to deal with highly educated doctors, and so far most of them are a bunhc of worthless incompetents who have no follow-up. I know out-of-wrk aerospace engineers. I am out-of-work despite higher education in mathematics.
Higher education is only worthwhile if it comes with assloads of important contacts. Look at our current President and his immediate predecessor. I doubt either of them have the ability to handle a course in higher level algebra or analysis. (Hell, I’m not sure either could handle a first course in differential equations, if they could get that far. And DiffEq is easy.) Yet they had the contacts to become President. Education is meaningless, contacts are everything.
“As if Michael R didn’t already have an insufferable ego to begin with . . .”
Heh. OK, I’m back. Not sure I’d disagree with Dave. I’ve always considered Reynolds to be very bright. But he’s sort of a rock star, a point I either made here, or maybe in a back channel email. That is, he’s obviously very talented and successful in his chosen venue: an author, subset, children’s books. We should all applaud and acknowledge that. A real talent.
My issue is different. I don’t look to Mick Jagger, Merrill Streep, Chris Rock or, well, Michael Reynolds for insight as to how an economy or business should be run. They all are brilliant at what they do, but their insights on business, outside their own, are pretty much worthless.
Similarly, if I were to write a book and send it to Reynolds, I suspect after reading three pages he’d laugh, throw it into the trash and properly claim “this is pure crap.” You have no idea.
But I have to be honest, as someone who was a lender to businesses for 7 years, and who has owned and operated businesses for an additional 13 years, when I read some of the stuff here (or that soon to be dinosaur site OTB) about what is going on, or how policy should work, or how businessmen do or should think………I get that belly laugh and think…….this is pure, ignorance driven, crap. These people have no clue. None.
I undertand that since commerce is the way we all make our way it gives license to all to have a say. And in America we all have a right to an opinion. But all opinions are not equal.
Just for grins and I don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect that the highest IQ among my commenters may well be Michael R.
You’re right, your observation did induce a grin (and nausea.)
I also should mention my skepticism of any IQs measured above three standard deviations. I strongly doubt that the tools are that discriminating.
I’m not clear on what you’re skeptical about. I assume you mean the ability of tests to discern gradations at the 3 and 4 SD level and not the phenomena of their being little real world difference between people with IQ at 3 SD and 4 SD. If the latter then you should familiarize yourself with Benbow’s work on gifted youth. The predictive ability of the SAT (a proxy for an IQ test) given to 12 year olds who scored above 700 on each subtest is pretty astounding when matched against their real-life outcomes decades later. There is a very clear distinction in career paths, graduate school admissions, and other real life proxies for intelligence between these precocious youths and merely very smart people, those with IQs in the 120-140 range.
As for IQ tests, the simple fact is that the IQ test is the best SINGLE predictor of life outcomes. There is no other single test, no other single variable (parental SES status, for instance, or divorced parents, or school achievement,) which has better predictive ability. That said, IQ tests are not 100% predictive and success and achievement in life have many sources so IQ isn’t everything, but as a single factor, there is nothing else that comes close to having the same predictive ability.
I think the tests are probably reasonably reliable at the margin of the standard deviation and I think they’re measuring something real. So, for example, I think there really is a difference in ability between somebody whose IQ is measured at 100 and somebody whose IQ is measured at 115.
What I’m skeptical about is the tests’ ability to measure something real in higher numbers that are closer together than a standard deviation. I’m skeptical that the tests can really measure a difference between an IQ of 163 and 164 and that whatever they’re measuring is something real at that level and within such narrow bounds.
I hope I don’t have to insert emoticons after my self-amused jabs because that would make me (´；ω；`)
I’m skeptical that the tests can really measure a difference between an IQ of 163 and 164 and that whatever they’re measuring is something real at that level and within such narrow bounds.
Do any of the tests make such claims? I’m not willing to look it up but I can’t believe that such tests don’t include the usual “plus or minus” language, to speak to your first concern. I doubt that many people that got 1600 SAT scores back in the day (before it was dumbed down so much) could have been expected to hit 1600 on subsequent tests. The test makers, if not the idiots in admissions departments, should know that. (And yes, I realize that the SAT is not an IQ test. However the same rules should apply to the test designers for both types of exam.)
As to whether or not there would be a real difference from 163 to 164 – there would be some theoretically, if one could measure that finely. The differense would be roughly this: Being one of the smartest 4 people in a randomly selected group of 100,000 people, versus being one of the smartest 3 people in a randomly selected group of 100,000 people. It’s a scale of relative measure, after all, and not a quantitative measure of that elusive quantity ‘g’.
More practically, one can definitely ‘feel’ a difference of about ten points up near the top of the scale. Someone around 160 just has more intellectual pressence when engaged than someone at 150. The guys up at the 170 level and above are just otherwordly. I suspect that it is hard to really tell much difference in the intelligence of people that are more than 15 to 20 points above one’s own intelligence (roughly a standard deviation).
For fun, people can check their old test scores to see how they might stack up at various places online. Old SAT and GRE scores, for example, were pretty good proxies for intelligence tests. You could check conversions at this site, for example, or see if one qualified for the Triple Nine Society here.
And I would also bet that there is a greater QUALITATIVE difference between 163 and 164 (if one could accurately measure that finely) than from 100 to 101.
Further, if you could find the four smartest people out of a randomly chosen group of 100,000 people, I would bet that at least half the time the four of them could figure out who ranked at the bottom given a couple of hours to shoot the bull.
Information Processing frequently touches on these topics of intelligence. The comments section can become pretty fierce for those posts!
Just for grins and I don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect that the highest IQ among my commenters may well be Michael R.
Proving once again how smart Schuler is. My tested IQ is 154.
Now, that was many years ago. And it’s entirely possible that age and alcohol have knocked a few (dozen) points off that. And I’d add that anyone who knew my whole life story would question whether I was smart at all. I usually analogize IQ to horsepower: you can go really fast. . . right into a brick wall.
On the other hand, having done virtually nothing to educate myself or improve my skills, and having dawdled until I was in my mid-30’s doing nothing but dead-end jobs, I was able to wheel around suddenly and build a successful career in a pretty competitive field. So IQ is useful.
I consider it a gift, something I did nothing to earn.
As do I. IMO high intelligence grants one the ability to do without working things that those not similarly blessed must exert substantial effort to accomplish. I interpret that as inevitably implying that there are some levels of ability and some tasks that no level of effort will enable one to accomplish.
But here’s the point I’ve been circling around. That’s not a moral judgment. It’s just a statement of fact. Conversely, accomplishing a given task (say, getting a PhD) is not necessarily a sign of some moral superiority. There’s really no way to tell.
I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered anyone who’s significantly smarter than I am. There is a point at which it becomes decreasingly likely. When I lived a block from the Northwestern campus I regularly met people who were very clearly bright. Afterwards, not so much.
The closest would be a dear, old friend. He may well be a bit smarter than I am. He’s working as a computer programmer at Argonne. Couldn’t get a tenured job teaching applied mathematics and he had a family to support.
I have met two of the giants of 20th Century mathematic: John Thompson and Paul Erdos. Erdos was old and weird, and it was impossible to really get a handle on him. Thompson, OTOH, just freaking glowed. I just can’t describe it. And that was the old Thompson, on his retirement ‘job’ at the University of Florida. He made way more (in salary) than any of the other profs, and he taught one class a semester – a seminar course which only the brightest PhD students attended, along with interested tenured professors. (And no, I never got far enough along to even consider taking that course. I just peaked in the window in the door from time to time to see who really had the stuff.) Just being around him a little bit was illuminating, although it was also impossible to not know who he was. (And if you don’t know who John Thompson is, then you aren’t really a math guy.)
I also knew a couple of students who were way up the scale. One of them got his PhD, went to work doing spook math stuff for the government, while trying to break through with his band on the indie circuit. One of the few people I’ve met who I really felt had a significant edge on me.
Oddly, the prodigies weren’t always as impressive. We had a young man that hung out in the math department with us grad students. He was about 16 or 17 at the time, technically still in high school, but taking six thousand level math and physics courses. (At least one of his parents had a job as a prof at UF.) He was undoubtedly bright, and very driven, but he just didn’t really come off as that much brighter than most of the graduate students. What he did have (besides excellent genes, of course) were two highly educated parents that had been pushing him since he was a babe at the breast. Think Tiger Mom and Tiger Dad. But they wanted him to become an engineer like they were, and he had other things he wanted to do. I think he was trying to get in as much high level math and physics as he could before slogging through an undergraduate degree is some field of engineering.
But you are correct – the closer to the top the harder it is to meet people significantly smarter than oneself. But man, when you do you can really feel the difference.
I haven’t met many with higher raw IQ, but from their work I know a number of people who’ve done a hell of a lot more with less.
I haven’t met many with higher raw IQ, but from their work I know a number of people who’ve done a hell of a lot more with less.
Thompson’s work on classifying finite groups is not something that could be done by someone with less. It wouldn’t matter how hard someone worked, if they didn’t have the intellectual firepower they simply could not have done it. Hell, I doubt anyone under an IQ of 130 could even understand the work, even if they worked their asses off. Hard work can only accomplish so much.
That’s very much to the point I’m making. My grandfathers had only a primary school education. My parents were exceptional for their generation: not only did they graduate from high school but college and a post-graduate degree as well. I always assumed that I’d go to college and get a post-graduate degree (as I did).
Post-graduate work isn’t for everyone. Unless we debase college and post-graduate work to the point where they’re actually remedial secondary school work, a college education is about the end of the line for more than half of the population.
To my mind the implication is that education is no solution to our competitiveness problem; we’ve taken that train just about as far as it will go.
That’s already been done. They’re called Colleges of Education on most campuses. The same is true for J-school.
I was there 15 comments ago.
However, it depends to a large extent on how one defines education. Going to a school and getting degrees ain’t necessarily the same thing as an education.
For that matter, an education doesn’t necessarily mean an addition of useful skills. An education that teaches one about the difference in various schools of art in the ninteenth and twentieth centuries might give one a better appreiciation of whatever the hell Picasso thought he was doing with Guernica, but isn’t likely to ever put more money in your pocket. (Or make society any more productive.) Or take another example:while working as a bag boy all those years ago I learned that it doesn’t pay to clean the bathrooms all that well when given the task – all that will do is insure that you always get the toilet duty. An important lesson that I never completely mastered, but completely worthless from the standpoint of advancing society. (Short version: Shit work is shit work. The best you can hope for is to not get any of it on yourself if/when you get stuck with it.)
To my mind the implication is that education is no solution to our competitiveness problem; we’ve taken that train just about as far as it will go.
For that matter, an education doesn’t necessarily mean an addition of useful skills.
Agree with both.
I’ve been worried for years about reaching the point where there was simply nothing much useful to be done with low IQ people. The usual response is “education.” But you cannot educate IQ 80 to do brain surgery, and you cannot educate me to do particle physics. IQ does set some limits.
You can certainly teach anyone — from retarded to genius — to have a more complete appreciation for art or music, or to improve a skill. But so what? It’s no doubt a good thing, but does it do anything to expand the economy? Does it pay for itself? Will it help a person get a job?
I personally think knowledge is a thing that is good in itself, a sort of virtue. But that’s an almost religious faith, not an economic argument.
For a bunch of smart guys, you’ve certainly gone off in the weeds with IQ.
It’s not into the weeds, jp. It’s a key point. Not everybody is going to be trained to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyers, a computer programmer, or a web designer. Those who are actually represent a relatively small percentage of the population. What’s more, they probably don’t require subsidy.
As a matter of policy our choices are either to put everybody who doesn’t fit into the grand new scheme for the economy on the dole, write them off entirely, or throw good money after bad making people angry and frustrated.
I think the solution is as diverse an economy as possible. We need more manufacturing, more agriculture, more raw materials production. While installing insulation and painting roofs will employ some people, it won’t employ enough.
Didn’t you say above that the middle portion of the band was the important one? I don’t see much time spent on how to serve that band.
To return to it myself, I don’t think that The University is really that bad. It’s just a costs issue. If name-your-institution was $5 per credit, we wouldn’t need reinvention, and people could keep getting degrees until they found one they liked.
I’ve read more of that Christensen paper. It’s a little choppy in form, but adds up to us being caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the traditional Uni (with inflating costs), and the hard place is the for-profit on-line alternative (interested in “signing” students more than educating them).
If we want to serve the middle bland we have to break that dynamic … or, sadly we’ll have to wait it out, until some day good providers emerge from the for-profits.
I may be moderate in policy, but this is where my conservative soul shines through. I have zero confidence in industrial policy.
All we can do is clear the decks, trust people to want stuff, and trust other people to sell stuff.
Short prescription: Some states need to launch competitive on-line(*) public colleges, with the charter that they _can_ eat the lunch of traditional schools.
* – I say “on-line” but really mean to explore the balance, the sweet spot in remote and butt-in-chair learning.
I agree. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re subsidizing finance, healthcare, and education at fantastic levels to the detriment of practically everything else. That’s not “clearing the decks”; that’s doubling down.
If you look at the posts I’ve written here over the last seven years carefully, you’ll see that what I advocate is clearing the decks. Indeed, in my view the influence of government in the private sector is so pervasive that it inevitably frustrates would-be planners. Nothing works out the way they think it should.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered anyone who’s significantly smarter than I am.”
This has been a most interesting thread, with more than the usual personal gut spilling. I know it was touched upon, but I feel a need to emphasize it. In the general world of business or everyday life I’ve encountered some very bright people. But, long ago, I came from the world of science. And in that world I encountered the proverbial pulsating brains. Its a different world. Why these people end up disproportionately in the sciences I do not know.
I had a physics prof, Professor Sato, who was other worldly. Scary smart. My thesis prof was a guy named Reinhardt Schumann. You can probably google him. Worked on the Manhattan Project, patents out the wazoo; a major force in the extractive metallurgy field. Crusty old German who changed my life (for the better) by beating the shixt out of me intellectually for two years.
Outside of the sciences, the single smartest guy I’ve ever run into was a childhood, well, I guess teenhood friend who dazzled people on those school vs school Q&A shows. The guy single handedly destroyed the opposition week after week. But where did he end up? I don’t know. He knew he was a bit of an outcast, and in his twenties he had a weakness for drugs. Dropped out of school. I lost track of him. I’ve heard through the grapevine he ended up in California doing software. Hope he is well.
So what’s the point, the so called bottom line: how do we define success? Intellect, money, social status, happiness, ……I could go on. The obvious answer is comprehensive body of work and personal satisfaction with that. One hopes that he or she makes a difference and a mark on the world, and has some good times while doing it.
That’s my sermon for today.
As a parting note. I think Schuler runs one of the best sites in the business. Its a shame that he doesn’t get more commenters. I don’t know what the secret to that is. But for those lurking out there, come on in, the water is fine.
“Post about sex.”
Eewwww! Are we making news? I had this girlfriend in college, see, and she did this thing, you know, where she would…….
I’ve tried the provocateur route, and that didn’t work, here or at a site I write for from time to time. I obviously don’t know the secret to promoting heavy commenting. Ever consider renaming your site “Hooters?”
I think the solution is as diverse an economy as possible. We need more manufacturing, more agriculture, more raw materials production. While installing insulation and painting roofs will employ some people, it won’t employ enough.
We live in one of the world’s most expensive cost of living societies. The costs of our physical and social infrastructure fall on all of us. The problem for many of these industries that are heavily reliant on brawn is that they can’t fully exploit the benefits that arise from using our physical and social infrastructure so it’s more or less superfluous to their operations and profitability.
Look at how China is snagging manufacturing and being successful because they can pay low wages and their manufacturers don’t have to pay many taxes to support Chinese social and physical infrastructure. Our manufacturers have to move up the industry food chain and find competitive advantage in our physical and social infrastructure and thus prevent a race to the bottom and that’s very hard to do.
Look at agriculture in America as it operates today – there is a constant call for the importation of a serf class to do the work and to be paid serf wages. The problem for society is that these serfs are subsidy sponges – the amount of value that they produce in the economy via their labor comes nowhere close to offsetting the benefits that accrue to them and their family through their use of our social and physical infrastructure.
I think that you’re looking at this general problem through the wrong end of the looking glass. You’re identifying classes of people who exhibit low economic productivity and you’re trying to find ways to boost their productivity beyond their hardwired limits. That’s a Sisyphean task. What we should be doing, over the long run, is reducing the footprint of these classes of people. Stop importing uneducated and unintelligent people to do serf work while simultaneously displacing low skilled Americans from the workforce and onto social welfare. Implement reverse baby bonuses to reduce the birth rate of low skilled workers (if it not stigmatizing for professional women to remain childless or have only one child because of the demands of their lifestyle then the same lack of stigma should extend to low skill people.
It’s easier for productive society to carry the load of the unproductive if the ratio of the unproductive is constant or dropping. When the ratio is increasing then the signals are pretty clear that we’re heading to a reckoning of some sorts.
I’ve been worried for years about reaching the point where there was simply nothing much useful to be done with low IQ people. The usual response is “education.†But you cannot educate IQ 80 to do brain surgery, and you cannot educate me to do particle physics. IQ does set some limits.
An IQ of 140 should be sufficient for particle physics. You’ll be one of the scribs working for other people, but the thing itself can be done.
Drew, the smartest folks end up in the sciences disproportionately one of several ways. My favorite is that high-end science is one of the areas in which a very high level of intelligence is a requirement.
Additionally, why would you think having more commenters would be a good thing? Ever visited, say, LGF, the DU, or the FR?
Everybody enjoys positive feedback. The guy picked first for the baseball team is more likely to aspire to pro ball, the guy who aces the chem exam is more likely to choose that major.
Heh, I’ve got a stature here somewhere about “high school science student of the year” …