A great article from Forbes is excerpted below. It’s nice to see a little honestly about the fact that increasing “investment in education” mostly means higher pay for unproductive and ineffective adults who earn a living in the education industry.
Barack Obama hardly ever gives a speech without mentioning the need to “invest more in education”. Many so-called “Conservatives” voice agreement with this notion. The unstated assumption on both sides of the aisle is that “investment in education” produces an attractive return. But is this true?
No, it’s not. The numbers strongly suggest that, at least in economic terms, America has gotten nothing for the enormous increase in educational “investment” that we have made over the past 60 years.
Before going any farther, it is important to realize that what Obama (and even most Conservatives) think of as “investment in education” is really “government spending on education”. Much, perhaps most, of the learning vital to the functioning of the economy occurs on the job. None of this “education” is reflected in the numbers that the politicians look at.
