Kling’s article is first-rate.
He makes the same point I’ve been making on how misleading the average college earnings versus average high school earnings statistic is. Regarding his daughter, a college grad who can find nothing but secretarial work, he says, “As her experience illustrates, although the average salary differential between college graduates and non-graduates remains high, the marginal college graduate is earning little or no premium.”
Another money quote: “One politically popular idea is to try to send more young adults to college. This may seen appealing, but in reality we already have too many students in college who lack sufficient basic skills.” Yes, and that problem is just going to get worse as K-12 education continues down its feel-good “student-centered” path.
The “entrepreneurship” aspect of the piece is Kling’s belief that education is badly in need of innovation. Unfortunately, he writes, “the politicians of both parties who are most strongly ‘pro-education’ are in fact the biggest obstacles to improvement, since their policies serve only to entrench the educational establishment.”
This is too good to miss. Read it and send it to others.
