If ‘If’s and ‘But’s Were Candy and Nuts…

Oh! What a Party We’d Have.
(Or, to misquote Pink Floyd, They Don’t Need No Education.)

Those readers of a certain age and inclination may recall Dandy Don Meredith’s use of those phrases back when Monday Night Football was entertaining. ¹  Somehow it has been mangled on the web to be something about Christmas, rather than a party. ²   Yes, it was a long, long time ago, and we were a very young boy—though the charm and good-looks were evident.

Reading, or at least skimming—it was kind of long and boring—Charles Murray’s opinion column in today’s Wall Street Journal reminded us of that title quote, which we swear is also from an old Willie Nelson song, but we can’t recall the title.  Anyway, Murray laments the necessity of college and earning a bachelor’s degree as per the title of his essay: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time.  Now, anyone who has stood in front of a university classroom, except the very most charitable personalities, would likely agree. ³

But, despite those sentiments—while at the same time assuming that those impressions are valid—we note that such observations do not mean that a more efficient, feasible solution exists, especially since his solution implicitly calls for more government regulation and interference in the economy.  (Recall that barbers and hair stylists need licenses, and has that ever prevented a bad hair cut?  Certainly, not in our town or any town that we have ever visited or even on our own precious head.)  Dr. Murray cites CPAs as an example of how a national certification system can work.  (Presumably, he has never taught introductory financial or managerial accounting to most CPAs attending MBA programs.)  But he ignores that the fact that such testing and licenses are governmentally—albeit state government—mandated.

While he does acknowledge the market place and the possibility of private testing services, he ignores the difficultly of developing and administering such tests on a national scale.  For example, he mentions ETS (Educational Testing Service), but we recall reading a few months ago that they no longer believe in the validity of their own SAT tests.

Our readers can skim Dr. Murray’s essay for themselves, but we have several comments about his suggestions.  First, suppose a national certification system were indeed optimal, such a condition does not mean that a colleges would atrophy and die for lack of use.  In fact, a college education could still be the most efficient way for most job candidates to gain the necessary test-related “knowledge,” and that is regardless of the absolute level of college-related waste.  What matters is how college stacks up against other learning alternatives.  (The general problem is a net benefit maximization program, not a cost minization program.)

In fact, at one time in the last millenium we had an interest in starting a firm that offered such testing services to corporations.  We considered that if the service were successful, a side benefit would be the accumulation of test performance data across programs and universities, and we thought that was the best way to determine the best programs in a field, without relying on the opinion of non-specialist corporate recruiters, biased alumni, and past (and possibly obsolete) reputations.

Second, given his implicit call for more government regulation, Dr. Murray provides a stereotypical example of a deficiency that many social scientists, who are not trained as economists, possess.  Despite his mention of the market, he seems to ignore incentives and motivation and human behavior.  (One need not be an economist; having an understanding of the fallen nature of man is often sufficient for this purpose).  To be brief, we ask: can you say, “cartel” and, possibly, ever-increasing test standards, etc.  Moreover, combining our first two criticisms, we note that screening and signaling solutions already exist to many such adverse selection (private information) problems in this part of society.  Dr. Murray may dislike the costs or implications of these solutions, but he provides no evidence that his solution would benefit anyone beyond the additional government bureaucrats administering licenses.

Third, who is to say that all benefits of education can be quantified or exhibited on a standardized test?  This criticism of his recommendation is similar to our frequent criticism of risk management, i.e., immeasurable things can hurt and should not be ignored. ⁴ Likewise, an individual’s immeasurable or qualitative traits can provide huge benefits to employers, may be evident to recruiters, and may be developed in a college atmosphere.

In the past, we had a certain agreement and respect for Dr. Murray as he tackled politically incorrect topics.  It is possible that his success has led him into an Elvis or Michael Jackson-like bubble, where no close associates will provide honest feedback, e.g., “No, Elvis, that white jump doesn’t make you look fat,”  or “No, Michael, the surgery looks good.”  Does Dr. Murray have an entourage?  Let’s hope not.

P.S. We wrote this on a now depreciable, Vista notebook that has the hideous pointer property of selecting whatever the cursor sits on or inserting itself where it stops.  Is the devil working at Dell’s touchpad supplier?

Copyright © 2008 Spero Consulting.