CHAPTER 10 Five Chats on Education and Enlightenment
                    
                            
                                Note:10@@@@@@@@ FINO ALL ASTERIS O
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            no one’s in the dark.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:TUTTI PENSANO DI SAPERE IN MATERIA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Few read education research,
                
        
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            insular.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:I RICERCATORI DISMETTONO I PROFANI E VICEVERSA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            to merge
                
                    
                            
                                Note:L AMBIZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Chat #1: Education, What It’s Good For
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Selfishly speaking, you shot yourself
                
                    
                            
                                Note:AL DROPOUT
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            schooling pays mainly by signaling employability, not by raising employability.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA TESI
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            I’m a whistle-blower. Without my prestigious credentials, would you even listen to my “case
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA SPIA...MPLURILAUREATA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            use T. S. Eliot on the job?
                
        
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            students won’t use Eliot on the job, but they need good grades to get a
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PARADOSSO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            I never said “all”!
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CARICATURA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            mostly signaling,
                
        
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            education premium.”
                
        
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            human capital share.
                
        
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            signaling share.
                
        
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            If most employers refused to hire dropouts out of sheer snobbery, fair-minded employers could get rich quick.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:NO DISCRIMINAZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            While competent dropouts exist, they’re hard to pinpoint
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COMPETENT DROPOUT
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Without hundreds of billions of annual subsidies, who knows what alternative worker certification systems would have arisen?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTERNATIVE? IMPOSSIBILI DA SCOVARE...STATUS QUO RULES
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            subsidies aggravate
                
        
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            credible signals have to be expensive.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ESIGENZA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            If diamonds were suddenly cheap
                
        
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            Eighty percent signaling is my best guess.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:80%
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            education signals a package
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IL PACCHETTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            intelligence, work ethic, and sheer conformity for starters.
                
        
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            Goldman Sachs poach high school seniors as soon as they’re admitted to Harvard, instead of waiting four years for them to graduate?
                
        
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            ALTERNATIVA
        
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            Goldman Sachs doesn’t want misfits and weirdos. It wants outstanding conformists.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTERNATIVA IN CONTRASTO COL CONFO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Chat #2: College and Catch-22s
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Online education is exploding
                
        
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            Why mortgage your house to build job skills you can learn over the Internet
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PERCHÈ NN RISPARMIARE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            answer: signaling.
                
        
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            Online education is a better way to learn, but employers still don’t take it seriously.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA COSA DICE MOLTO SULLA SCUOLA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            “early adopters” flout social convention.
                
        
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            the nonconformist stigma
                
        
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            Conformity signaling elegantly explains their resilience.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UNIVERSITA PLURISECOLARI
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”: “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BIBBIA AMERICANA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            What happens if a student, taking Emerson to heart, leaves their seat without permission?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:HAI HAI
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            hypocrisy about “being yourself.”
                
        
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            Businesses need conformity
                
        
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            I think we all agree K–12 builds human capital;
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SI SALVA LA PRIMARIA?
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Think about all the academic classes K–12 students rarely use on the job: history, foreign language, poetry, civics.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:NOOOOO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            earning a STEM degree impresses employers
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PERCHÈ STEM GUADAGNANO PIÙ DEI NN STEM
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Social Desirability Bias.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:XCHÈ UNA VISIONE IMPOPOLARE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            sheepskin effect.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IL PUNTO DI FORZA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Chat #3: How Educational Investments Measure Up
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Compare below-average college earnings to above-average high school earnings.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CONSIGLIO PRATICO AI DIPLOMATI.... L UNIVERSITÀ NN TERMINATA VALE ZERO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            two evils: Overlooked Potential and False Hope.
                
        
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            so obsessed with the first evil and so indifferent to the second?
                
        
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            garbage collector makes almost $34,000 a year.
                
        
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            but it’s nasty.
                
        
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            attending school is, like garbage collection, a nasty way to make a buck?
                
        
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            You should expect about a 3% return to starting college. Selfishly speaking, that’s no disaster, but you can do better.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALLA MATRICOLA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            “Education is a bad investment socially speaking.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:MA IL PUNTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            One possible benefit of education, for example, is crime reduction.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ESEMPIO DI RESA SOCIALE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            selfish benefits of education are zero-sum.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SE L ED È SEGNALE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Credential inflation at work.
                
        
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            When researchers disentangle the “technological change” and “credential inflation”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:INFLAZ TITOLI E AUMENTO TECNOLOGICO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            20% tech, 80% credentialism.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:INFLAZ TITOLO INFLAZIONE TECNOLOGIA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Crime
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SETTORI DOVE GIOVA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            raising the taxes
                
        
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            cutting the benefits
                
        
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            likely to commit less crime, because they’ve got more to lose.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PERCHÈ
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Aren’t you worried lower education subsidies will lead to smaller families?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SCUOLA A PAGAMENTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            use some of the money we save on schools to fund fertility.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:RIMEDIO
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            they more than pay for themselves,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BAMBINI
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Chat #4: Why Do You Hate Education?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            For elementary and secondary school, means-tested vouchers.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:POLICY
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            End the taxpayer subsidies.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UNIVERSITÀ
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            unsubsidized student loans,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:X I PIÙ POVERI
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            You favor higher tuition.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTE TASSE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            spurs youths to waste fewer years
                
        
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            hefty budget cuts would bring credential inflation to its knees.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COMBATTERE L INFLAZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            Most don’t even finish high school. Does college really strike you as a viable path
                
                    
                            
                                Note:USCIRE DALLA POVERTÀ
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            vocational training.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA VIA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            if perpetuation of capitalist hierarchy were my goal, I’d model schools after military academies.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA SCUOLA ASSERVITA AL SISTEMA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            vocational education, in contrast, isn’t to brainwash kids
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA SC PROFF NN È ASSERVOTA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            drudgery of school?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:DOPPIO STANDARD... SCUOLA E LAVORO MINORILE
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            schools force every kid to “prepare for college,” but only a third cross the collegiate finish line.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:STORTURA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            they promise, “Free markets will make education even better.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:I LIBERTARI NN ATTACCANO LA VACCA SACRA
                            
                    
                
            
        
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            both public and private schools. They’re cut from the same cloth.
                
        
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            adopt—policies that sound good,
                
                    
                            
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