Ideal worlds: How would a high-education society work?

[Lagmonster]

I was recently stymied in an argument, so, like always, I turn to SDnet:

This fellow and I were arguing over the idea that everyone should strive to be educated. Specifically, he was arguing that uneducated people are necessary in society, because a highly educated person would never work as, say, a janitor, because the degree they'd earned would allow them the opportunity to compete for better jobs.

We hypothesized a scenario where a nation had, somehow, managed to generate an adult population that was at minimum in possession of a Bachelor's Degree in some non-gag discipline (we suggested over 90% of the able adult population were serious degree earners for the purposes of discussion). He argued that in such a situation, we would be looking at a nation of blue collar working teenagers and rampant illegal immigrant employee scenarios, because no serious degree earner would take a job as a garbage man. He suggested that such a society would implode because of too much weight at the top of the pyramid. I argued that higher education makes one more eligible for better-paying jobs and benefits him more as a person and citizen, but that sheer competition for limited high-paying jobs would mean that some people, regardless of education, would have to suck it up and take shitty jobs. That universal high education would simply drive hiring standards up and people would adapt to the same realities in employment as there are now: the best people and the most well-connected people get the best jobs, you'd just be last in a class of 50,000 instead of 500.

So how would you suggest that a society overstuffed with highly educated people work?

[Winston Blake]

It would only work in a world where blue collar jobs were all done by robots or something. You would probably need to force people to go to university to achieve 90% 'serious degree earning'. Some people may be well-suited to professional plumbing, flooring, roofing, etc, yet in this society they would be forced to get a degree first, which they never use.

I think the question is: is the ordinary proportion of educated people a result of people not striving to better themselves, or is it an equilibrium of supply and demand?

Further, if a roofer wants to study a little political science so he can understand the world better, he can just go to the library and check out some textbooks. You can strive to better yourself without paying for a degree. A degree is a qualification - it shows an employer what you're made of. If you don't plan on being employed in a field, you can just study it outside university in your spare time.

The benefits of an over-educated society could be had easily, if everybody pursued knowledge for pleasure instead of watching Big Brother or whatever.

[Broomstick]

Ironically, I have a bachelor's degree and I've been working as a roofer lately...

Highly educated people WILL take menial jobs, or manual labor jobs, if there are no alternatives. However, not everyone needs higher education. If someone wanted to (as an example) work as a plumber than a year of study pertinent to that profession followed by an apprenticeship (or even better, do them simultaneously) would be much more useful as that profession requires practice as well as theory. That doesn't mean a plumber is stupid - we need intelligent people to work on plumbing systems, too - it just means his education had a different focus than, say, a doctor.

And yeah, this degreed roofer spends a lot of time at the library. But then, I'm the exception.

[Singular Intellect]

If everyone has bachelor's degrees, employers will start to ignore them, since they don't show that you stand out anymore. You'd see a progression upward - if you don't have the bachelor's degree, no one takes you seriously at all, but if you want to become a professional, you'll be forced to go up to a master's in order to stand out from the crowd.

This idea is in the same vein as asking 'what if everyone had tons of money'. This isn't an ideal system, it merely shows that money becomes worthless.

As previously mentioned, the only way you're really going to get majority populations with high end educations is if the pyramid base of society is supported by automation.

[Lagmonster]

If everyone has bachelor's degrees, employers will start to ignore them, since they don't show that you stand out anymore. You'd see a progression upward - if you don't have the bachelor's degree, no one takes you seriously at all, but if you want to become a professional, you'll be forced to go up to a master's in order to stand out from the crowd.

This idea is in the same vein as asking 'what if everyone had tons of money'. This isn't an ideal system, it merely shows that money becomes worthless.

Giving everyone money devalues money without adding value to the people. Giving people education doesn't devalue the education - you still end up with educated people. You're can't dismiss the value of an educated society just because it would be economically problematic; what about politics, religion, social care?

As previously mentioned, the only way you're really going to get majority populations with high end educations is if the pyramid base of society is supported by automation.

This is now the third time I've heard someone say this, but I've yet to have someone explain why. Broomstick seems to agree with me that people will, by choice or necessity, take jobs that do not require formal education, because the necessity exists to earn a paycheck to live. I would like to hear an elaboration on exactly why someone would think a theoretical society of highly educated degree earners needs slave labour or robots or whatever at the bottom.

[Singular Intellect]

This idea is in the same vein as asking 'what if everyone had tons of money'. This isn't an ideal system, it merely shows that money becomes worthless.

Giving everyone money devalues money without adding value to the people. Giving people education doesn't devalue the education - you still end up with educated people. You're can't dismiss the value of an educated society just because it would be economically problematic; what about politics, religion, social care?

You're misunderstanding me; I'm by no means suggesting education itself is worthless. I'm pointing out that if you have virtually everyone educated at the same level, that education no longer exists as a defining attribute.

It's like having two hands...no denying the usefulness of them (or the desire to see everyone with that attribute), but they are hardly a means of distingishing one person over another.

As previously mentioned, the only way you're really going to get majority populations with high end educations is if the pyramid base of society is supported by automation.

This is now the third time I've heard someone say this, but I've yet to have someone explain why. Broomstick seems to agree with me that people will, by choice or necessity, take jobs that do not require formal education, because the necessity exists to earn a paycheck to live. I would like to hear an elaboration on exactly why someone would think a theoretical society of highly educated degree earners needs slave labour or robots or whatever at the bottom.

I'm going to concede that point; I think my viewpoint seems from the idea that highly educated individuals working 'low class' jobs won't really be all that happy when they possess the knowledge and skills to have a much better job, but none are available.

I daresay though that with such a highly educated society, a push for automation on the lower pyramid jobs will become quite noticeable, since highly educated people will feel like they should be contributing and be productive elsewhere.

Basically boils down to the happiness of said society.

[Samuel]

Well, it depends on the quality of the education- if it manages to make people smarter, more questioning, more critical, than I cannot help but see it as a worthwhile social benefit.

Of course, if education doesn't have that pronounced effect or some of it is worthless... depends entirely on the quality.

As for getting the dirty work done... have young people do that starting at high school and continue after college. Those who like it can go into vocational jobs and those who don't can learn to appreciate their white collar work.

[Broomstick]

This is now the third time I've heard someone say this, but I've yet to have someone explain why. Broomstick seems to agree with me that people will, by choice or necessity, take jobs that do not require formal education, because the necessity exists to earn a paycheck to live. I would like to hear an elaboration on exactly why someone would think a theoretical society of highly educated degree earners needs slave labour or robots or whatever at the bottom.

I'm going to concede that point; I think my viewpoint seems from the idea that highly educated individuals working 'low class' jobs won't really be all that happy when they possess the knowledge and skills to have a much better job, but none are available.

I daresay though that with such a highly educated society, a push for automation on the lower pyramid jobs will become quite noticeable, since highly educated people will feel like they should be contributing and be productive elsewhere.

Not everyone wants to work in an office. Some people genuinely enjoying building things. It's like the argument that educating women is wasted when they become stay at home mothers, despite all sorts of statistics that indicate highly educated mothers tend to have healthier children with fewer social problems who then are more likely to become highly educated and productive members of society.

Someone with the primary occupation of "parent" may willing choose a part time job or one requiring fewer educational qualifications because of other compensating factors like more hours with family.

Trust me, I feel quite productive after taking a trashed apartment and rehabbing it to someplace beautiful, I feel productive after repairing a deteriorating wall and repainting it, and I feel productive after patching a leaking roof. There's more to being "productive" than a big paycheck, and frankly, I'm much happier NOT having to deal with corporate bullshit and office emo-drama even if the physical conditions I work under suck sometimes. My biggest complaint is I'd like to make more money for my efforts.

Creating and installing a working plumbing or electrical or heating system does require problem-solving skills and a certain level of intelligence. Doing so at a profit while charging a price low enough to get you hired takes experience and intelligence. Does that mean it requires an education on par with a doctor's? No. But making everyone educated, critical thinkers with a broad base of knowledge doesn't mean no one will ever want to work as a plumber or roofer again. (Although it might lead to improvements in how we do those jobs).

[Singular Intellect]

Not everyone wants to work in an office. Some people genuinely enjoying building things.

Of course they do, I'm one of those people Broomstick. I'm a drywaller by profession and enjoy my job, even if I start going on about the Laws of Thermodynamics while my buddies scratch their heads.

It's like the argument that educating women is wasted when they become stay at home mothers, despite all sorts of statistics that indicate highly educated mothers tend to have healthier children with fewer social problems who then are more likely to become highly educated and productive members of society.

Someone with the primary occupation of "parent" may willing choose a part time job or one requiring fewer educational qualifications because of other compensating factors like more hours with family.

Trust me, I feel quite productive after taking a trashed apartment and rehabbing it to someplace beautiful, I feel productive after repairing a deteriorating wall and repainting it, and I feel productive after patching a leaking roof. There's more to being "productive" than a big paycheck, and frankly, I'm much happier NOT having to deal with corporate bullshit and office emo-drama even if the physical conditions I work under suck sometimes. My biggest complaint is I'd like to make more money for my efforts.

Wouldn't we all! Mind you I can't complain much about my wage; it's steady work more than anything I worry about.

Creating and installing a working plumbing or electrical or heating system does require problem-solving skills and a certain level of intelligence. Doing so at a profit while charging a price low enough to get you hired takes experience and intelligence. Does that mean it requires an education on par with a doctor's? No. But making everyone educated, critical thinkers with a broad base of knowledge doesn't mean no one will ever want to work as a plumber or roofer again. (Although it might lead to improvements in how we do those jobs).

I can't disagree with you, honestly.

[PeZook]

This is now the third time I've heard someone say this, but I've yet to have someone explain why. Broomstick seems to agree with me that people will, by choice or necessity, take jobs that do not require formal education, because the necessity exists to earn a paycheck to live. I would like to hear an elaboration on exactly why someone would think a theoretical society of highly educated degree earners needs slave labour or robots or whatever at the bottom.

Because most degrees are completely useless as far as menial labor goes, therefore necessitating that people take the three-year education plus whatever additional training they need. Therefore, they waste three years of potential productivity in the field they end up working menial jobs in.

Let me put it this way: just like an army needs officers and NCOs, factories need engineers and skilled craftsmen.

[Samuel]

So basically, high education is good, but degrees are only essential for certain fields and unnecessary for much of the rest because you can do book work?

[Broomstick]

I'd say basic education is good but yeah, advanced degrees are only necessary for certain types of work. There's nothing wrong with people being educated above and beyond what is strictly necessary, but for some professions a formal apprenticeship and on-the-job training is more valuable than classroom study. It's just that at present many societies no longer value those jobs, or hold them in high esteem.

[PeZook]

So basically, high education is good, but degrees are only essential for certain fields and unnecessary for much of the rest because you can do book work?

Of course. Like it or not, giving everyone degrees is a total waste of time and resources if half the population won't use the skills they learned. Especially since as any skill, these are highly perishable.

If you want to teach people critical thinking, getting high schools in order would be a much better investment.

[Darth Wong]

A high-education society could only be achieved if the quality of education dropped precipitously. The fact is that if you're a 140 IQ person (which is probably not unusual if you have a good education), then from your perspective, almost all of the population is stupid. Even if you're a 100 IQ person, half the population is going to be dumber than you.

There is just no way to make these people all magically get smarter, especially since many of them don't even want to learn. Remember the moron in grade 8 algebra who constantly whined "when are we going to need this in life?" The only way to make people like that get "good educations" is to severely downgrade our notion of what a good education is.

In short, the high-education society would just have a horrible education system, so that it takes four years of university to bring students up to the level of a modern grade 12 high school student. You'd probably have an extraordinarily lazy population, having been accustomed to coasting for so long.

[aerius]

I have to agree with Broomstick. My degree is in Computer Science, but frankly, I'd much rather work in a bicycle shop than in the computers & electronics field. If I could make a decent living doing it I'd still be working in a bike shop right now, it was the most enjoyable job I've ever had.

[Winston Blake]

This is now the third time I've heard someone say this, but I've yet to have someone explain why. Broomstick seems to agree with me that people will, by choice or necessity, take jobs that do not require formal education, because the necessity exists to earn a paycheck to live. I would like to hear an elaboration on exactly why someone would think a theoretical society of highly educated degree earners needs slave labour or robots or whatever at the bottom.

Because there's such a thing as supply and demand. It's wasting a huge amount of time, money and effort on a degree only to take a completely different job, even a menial job, out of necessity. Such a huge a lack of demand for graduate skills means people won't want to bother getting them, unless forced to.

You've got:
- Personal costs - 3 or 4 years, tens of thousands of dollars and the opportunity costs (could have been working already, could have bought a car already, could have put that learning effort into the desired blue-collar field).
- Labour cost to society - you're essentially evaporating 3 or 4 years of labour that could have been contributed to society. Financially you've got, let's say, $30 000 wages a year times millions of students. It's on the order of billions a year wasted, funneled into the universities for no good use.
- Unhappy people - unhappy with the personal and societal costs, unhappy with being forced to go to uni, unhappy with earning a degree only to take a job as a janitor to make a living.

It's simply short-sighted to say 'Having a degree is good, so everyone should have degrees'. Now for everyone being educated - in a real sense that can be done autodidactically. Lifelong autodidactism is much more plausible cultural change than an unnaturally high proportion of graduates.

[PeZook]

In a way, highly educated intellectuals are something like force multipliers. They design things, they drive progress forward with cutting-edge research and scientific theory, but actually implementing those ideas and design on a large scale requires a huge army of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers, all of whom are important (some are just more expendable than others). A rocket scientist still needs shoes, working light bulbs and food, after all - does this mean that a janitor at NASA should have a degree? He still does a pretty important job, but he doesn't need five years of training to do it. Forcing Scruffy The KSC Janitor to take five years of college, when he doesn't even want to study science, is a collosal waste of time and money - you just want to have clean floors at your fancy space building! Send him to more specialized training, sure, but a degree? What the hell for?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Of course, we could genetically engineer the population to be more intelligent at the same time as we engage in massive automation of menial labour positions. The combination would allow such a society to exist, in strict theory only, granted. It should however be potentially possible, if we were able to successfully genetically select for intelligence and then duplicate it, and also have enough resources (which are not possible on this planet but might be possible for say a space-based civilization of the future) to totally automate society. In that case, people would be the administrators, business execs, and high-level design personnel in a state where virtually every other position was handled by automated machinery.

[Broomstick]

I'd miss getting my hands dirty on occasion. But then, I suppose in such a society people such as myself would be relegated to the trash heap - not due to lack of intelligence but for non-conformity with the societal dictates that we be managers rather than direct agents.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'd miss getting my hands dirty on occasion. But then, I suppose in such a society people such as myself would be relegated to the trash heap - not due to lack of intelligence but for non-conformity with the societal dictates that we be managers rather than direct agents.

There'd probably be some roles that would still require direct human involvement. Just that the level of automation would essentially mean that every fully employable individual had the equivalent to a Masters' degree, and that a bachelor's degree was essentially a preparatory degree to make your social participation informed.

[Broomstick]

I would not want to live in a world where I wasn't permitted to make things with my hands, and where there was no role for handcrafted items. Please do not invite me to your dystopia, I find the notion revolting.

[Junghalli]

I argued that higher education makes one more eligible for better-paying jobs and benefits him more as a person and citizen, but that sheer competition for limited high-paying jobs would mean that some people, regardless of education, would have to suck it up and take shitty jobs. That universal high education would simply drive hiring standards up and people would adapt to the same realities in employment as there are now: the best people and the most well-connected people get the best jobs, you'd just be last in a class of 50,000 instead of 500.

I tend to agree with this. The critical issue isn't the general education level of the population, it's the number of high-echelon slots vs the number of people who can fill them. Just because the latter number is high doesn't mean anything if there are fewer slots than qualified applicants. Faced with a highly educated population white collar employers will simply raise the bar. Once all the white collar slots are taken the rest will be forced into blue collar jobs because it's either that or the dole. You'd end up with a world where you have (probably rather bitterly disappointed) college graduates being janitors and fry-cooks and whatnot because it's all they can get. Which honestly I'd say is probably the direction we're moving in now if current trends continue.

There's also, again, the possibility of a world where technology is advanced enough that many of the blue-collar jobs are automated.

[Ariphaos]

As I understand it, this is a major problem in China.

[FireNexus]

Higher education should certainly be available to all, but to get 90% of people to have it, you'd all but need to make it mandatory. Better to give people the basics of logic and critical thinking in K-12 than to waste additional time giving a formal college degree to teach them to people. I know quite a few people with no advanced degrees who are critical thinkers and have social attitudes more in line with the highly educated. Essentially, smart people will usually desire an education, and therefore achieve one (when possible) above and beyond the minimum requirements placed upon them. Dumbasses will not desire an education, and to force one on them is a tremendous waste of resources.

[K. A. Pital]

Make middle education (the 10/11-year school) stronger and give more real skills in last grades. There's no need to waste resources by making a 100% higher education society, unless you have shifted most of the unskilled labour functions to either robots or migrants, face it.

Moreover, generic universal education raises the bar hign enough for a person to employ logic and critical thinking; higher education is a study in a specialized field and it will not promote overall critical thinking (all too often people who are competent in their higher education sphere spew bullshit about everything else, that's how you get creationists who have higher education as well).