Brain Drain

I have stated before that I think schools teach the wrong thing.  I think I should elaborate on that point.

Point 1.  It’s an infographic about college degrees going from rare to super common in 40 years. 

Point 2.  An infographic about America’s most and least educated cities.

See, for years the mentality has always been that you should get a college degree to better yourself.  By that line of thinking, then the most and least educated cities should be a good indicator or where economic growth is occurring.   

I’m stopping that train of thought right now.  I know where I was going with it, but it was an A/B conversation.  Too simplistic and wrong.  Also, my conclusions were wrong. Or at least my assumed thoughts were wrong.  In general, there’s the idea that the most/least educated cities should also show the most/least growth.   More education equals more growth.  That’s what we’ve been told for years.  More specifically, more college education leads to more growth.  I think there might be a direct correlation up to a point, but it’s not a permanent equation. 

I don’t think the answer is as simple as the question sounds.  The question sounds like “what one single thing can we do to cause every single person to succeed?”

I don’t think there is such a thing.  First, the question is exceptionally vague.  How you define success is up to the individual.  As such, a broad level of success is invalid.  It’s much like the war on poverty.  Poverty is defined as the bottom percentage of the population.  I can’t remember what the number is specifically, but you can never win if the bottom percentage of the population is AUTOMATICALLY declared to be in poverty.  It doesn’t matter if the average person on the bottom drives a Ferrari and has $10,000 a day income.  It’s still the bottom. 

Education level is supposed to be a major factor in growth, but if that’s the case then economic output should have gone up astronomically in the last 40 years.  I’m not sure if it has or hasn’t.  What I do know is that some degrees aren’t worth a darn.  Certain classes of degrees aren’t worth the paper they are printed on, and as such a degree in such a program is relatively useless. 

How can a useless degree increase economic output?  Entrepreneurship is the answer, but that is something else that isn’t taught in school. 

Before I go into a deeper and even more unfathomable hole of half-thought out proofs and random thoughts, I think I’ll end.  Just realize not all thought experiments end well.  Sometimes, the answer isn’t that clean and you end up with more questions than answers.