As someone who has been involved in Progress Studies for the last 10 years, I agree with you. Education is highly overrated as a cause of material progress for many of the reasons that you give.
I do believe, however, that some types of education do generate long-term benefits to economic growth:
1) Basic literacy
2) Basic numeracy (i.e, arithmetic, but not math beyond that stage)
3) Highly technical skills, such as engineering
4) Very practical vocational education for working-class jobs.
All the above makes up maybe 10-20% of education. I am not saying that the rest is bad. Only that it does not make major contributions to long-term economic growth.
Sophisticated education is still needed for some of us. I did a Ph.D. in Engineering, one brother did Medicine, another a Ph.D. in Botany (and works in it), I have a daughter who is a structural engineer and a son who is a technical program manager. Conceivably he could have learned what he needed on the job - but the employment workspace is too unstable and companies are no longer willing to train people - unlike 50 years ago. The only realistic alternative is a sophisticated testing / certification authority - and even that is not going to deal well with the requirements for extensive and consecutive course work mastery that is needed in many of the tech fields. It is not clear to me that many autodidacts can self power through all the prerequisites - and I was notorious in grad school for taking courses without the prerequisites.
As a point of interest in Australia where I live in many disciplines 50% of graduates end up working in fields for which they are not trained in jobs which do not require heaps of technical expertise. One wonders what the benefit to society is of spending heaps of taxpayers funds on skills which are not used?
I don't understand your claim that the signaling theory predicts that the national rate of return should be below the social rate of return, while the human capital theory predicts it should be above it. The signaling theory predicts that all else equal the social rate of return to education should be _negative_, while any theory that posits positive externalities to education says it should be positive. I don't see any implied relationship between either of them and the ratio between individual and social rates of return.
As someone who has been involved in Progress Studies for the last 10 years, I agree with you. Education is highly overrated as a cause of material progress for many of the reasons that you give.
I do believe, however, that some types of education do generate long-term benefits to economic growth:
1) Basic literacy
2) Basic numeracy (i.e, arithmetic, but not math beyond that stage)
3) Highly technical skills, such as engineering
4) Very practical vocational education for working-class jobs.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-we-need-more-vocational-education
All the above makes up maybe 10-20% of education. I am not saying that the rest is bad. Only that it does not make major contributions to long-term economic growth.
Most of education amounts to a staggering waste. Reducing/eliminating that strikes me as a prospective lodestone for advancing human welfare.
Sophisticated education is still needed for some of us. I did a Ph.D. in Engineering, one brother did Medicine, another a Ph.D. in Botany (and works in it), I have a daughter who is a structural engineer and a son who is a technical program manager. Conceivably he could have learned what he needed on the job - but the employment workspace is too unstable and companies are no longer willing to train people - unlike 50 years ago. The only realistic alternative is a sophisticated testing / certification authority - and even that is not going to deal well with the requirements for extensive and consecutive course work mastery that is needed in many of the tech fields. It is not clear to me that many autodidacts can self power through all the prerequisites - and I was notorious in grad school for taking courses without the prerequisites.
Tangentially related but:
Many people dont see why economic growth matters at all.
Usually economics or such is brought up when there are harsh truths to be talked about, or tradeoffs to be made.
Thus there is negative associations.
Also, people want to feel like they can trust other people and parts of society.
Economics being brought up makes them feel that they cant trust other people, and thus it becomes an enemy.
Or at best, a tool to argue for whatever one thinks
As a point of interest in Australia where I live in many disciplines 50% of graduates end up working in fields for which they are not trained in jobs which do not require heaps of technical expertise. One wonders what the benefit to society is of spending heaps of taxpayers funds on skills which are not used?
Does the law of diminishing marginal returns apply to Education?
I don't understand your claim that the signaling theory predicts that the national rate of return should be below the social rate of return, while the human capital theory predicts it should be above it. The signaling theory predicts that all else equal the social rate of return to education should be _negative_, while any theory that posits positive externalities to education says it should be positive. I don't see any implied relationship between either of them and the ratio between individual and social rates of return.