But it's especially baffling behavior coming from a law professor, even if he is Glenn Reynolds.
This is a simple case of inflation: When you artificially pump up the supply of something (whether it's currency or diplomas), the value drops. The reason why a bachelor's degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability is that the government decided that as many people as possible should have bachelor's degrees.
There's something of a pattern here. The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we'll have more middle class people.
But homeownership and college aren't causes of middle-class status, they're markers for possessing the kinds of traits -- self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. -- that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class.
OK, yes, people apparently exist who have college degrees and lack positive work ethic traits and critical thinking skills, Glenn Reynolds is apparently proof of that, but the notion that college is not a cause of middle-class status clearly never tried to get a job with a middle-class wage and benefits in an economy where there's five or six applicants for every available job.
That's okay, he's got a solution for that.
Another response is an increased emphasis on non-college education. As the Wall Street Journal has noted, skilled trades are doing quite well. For the past several decades, America's enthusiasm for college has led to a lack of enthusiasm for vocational education.
That may be changing as philanthropists ranging from Andy Grove of Intel to Home Depot's Bernie Marcus work to encourage the skilled trades. We need people who can make things, and it's harder to outsource a plumbing or welding job to somebody in Bangalore.
Of course, the thing about skilled trades is that they require skill. Even with training, not everyone makes a good welder or machinist any more than just anyone can become a doctor or lawyer.
Which is funny, because these skilled trades require training and education. Most of all, they require an investment of money. That's a nasty catch-22, because saying "Go to trade school" is in many cases tens of thousands of dollars over 2-4 years, just like regular college. Since trades like electrician and plumber and carpenter are in demand, trade schools can charge more tuition when their programs are in demand. Wow!
What's really going on here of course is that a stupid, pliable populace is key to making Republican ideals work, chief of all the notion that financial success is free market tautology: if you were meant to be successful, you'd be successful already. If you're not, you need to "work harder".
Also note how Republicans want to rid the country of trade unions. God forbid machinists, mechanics, plumbers, pipefitters, electricians, etc have a union. They might make enough money to enter into middle-class status.
Whenever anyone advocates making education more difficult to obtain, they're doing so for their own benefit, not for yours. Republicans tend to have this problem, making education, voting rights, contraception and abortion, etc. as limited as possible. They understand all too well that these things are keys to maintaining a working middle-class. By doing everything they can to limit who has access to those, they secure more resources for themselves.
After all, if voting, a college education, and being in control of your own reproductive system didn't matter, why are Republicans trying to take all three away from as many people as possible? They say "There's declining power in the market for a degree. This is because too many people have them. If we make it harder to get a degree, the cost of getting one will go down."
All that means of course is that Republicans flunked Macroeconomics 101. Since when did limiting a finite resource make the price of that resource decrease?
Why, that's easy to sell to an uneducated public that doesn't have college degrees, yes?
By the way, the wealthiest 1% of Americans? They are educated.
Apart from their bank accounts, Gallup finds education to be the greatest difference between the wealthiest 1% of Americans and everyone else. The Gallup analysis reveals that 72% of the wealthiest Americans have a college degree, compared with 31% of those in the lower 99 percentiles. Furthermore, nearly half of those in the wealthiest group have postgraduate education, versus 16% of all others.
So yes, there's a definite reason they want to make college student loans harder to get, so that only the rich can go to college and graduate school.
We don't need no Department of Education...
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