<p>
Note how asset devaluation, or personal and government debt is not included. Moreover, GDP is skewed by inflated worth.</p>
<p>GDP is good for creative accounting and political spin, worthless otherwise.</p>
<p>It’s useful for measuring production, which is what we’re into here.</p>
<p>^^ Is that what you call a debt financed stimulus ?
Or a government backed asset bubble ?</p>
<p>or … …</p>
<p>I’m really not keen on getting into this silly argument when the focus is on education. Your points are beside The Point. The idea of this government-backed asset bubble is a red-herring, since the inflation of existing assets and their resale is not factored into GDP. As for newly purchased assets, a bubble is a problem of value - simply people believing things are worth more than they are. Inflated values of assets and commodities do not meaningfully affect total spending, so the amount of production behind the spending is the same; the spending is simply misallocated. And again, these points are at best vaguely related to the issue of at hand.</p>
<p>Honestly, it just sounds like you’re throwing random economics glossary terms together in the form of an “argument.” GDP is imperfect, but the best measure readily available for measuring production. I don’t know what you would propose. That United Nations fraud known as the HDI? Even that factors GDP PPP into its calculations. It might be cool in your seminar to just spew buzz words and watch people try to react, but I don’t think it’s very helpful for the purposes of meaningful discussion.</p>
<p>kekeke. Apparently not being educated is good.</p>
<p>I’m with you, but in fact the panic about college is not driven by any concern, at all, for intellectual values-it’s all about 1) selling loans for more and more degrees and 2) an unproven but sacred cow-like link between lifetime earnings and “education.”</p>
<p>Yes, because the Gosplan Congress is omniscient and can dictate the needs of the US’ labour market! Seeing as whatever they touch turns to cow pie, this will not end well. I can picture that half-Keynan windbag campaigning that ‘yes we can…make sure every non-feathered biped has a diploma’. </p>
<p>This reeks of central planning and economic fallacy. If one is seeking a more educated workforce, deregulate the education sector, abolish the Department of Education as Reagan advocated, and stop subsidising a 19th century education system. The cost of production for education is not high by any means, but the cartel known as the Association of Schools and Colleges makes it so.</p>
<p>After a certain critical number, there is not a significant point to raising the number of college degrees. Improving their quality and such is a much better alternative to raising the sheer quantity. America as a nation is so devoted to the statistics of the matter, but we need to bear in mind that simply stuffing a degree down everybody’s throat is not in the best interests of Society. There will always be, and have always been, specialized jobs which need training that cannot be achieved effectively in a college or university. Thus, we need to make sure that people do not become too well educated to want to perform those vocations; before we can expand upwards, we need a solid base labor foundation.</p>
<p>Agreed, this hardly considers the variation in degrees and in schools, etc. The stat by itself means little, and may even be positive.</p>
<p>I don’t know if its already been mentioned here (sorry im just lazy) but Canada has a different system, so no wonder they are on the top. Half the kids at my school applied to at least one school in Canada just in case they weren’t admitted in any at the US, maybe half of that group are going to Canada next fall: it’s a lot easier to get in, and the programs are great. I mean look at UBC, it is a great school and almost everyone is mailed an acceptance letter. University of Toronto is no different, it ranks high in academics, and it is also overflowing with students.</p>
<p>To respond to the original prompt, I’m glad to hear it. I fail to see how giving out degrees left and right would be a good thing. </p>
<p>If almost everyone has a degree, it makes the degree worthless. A college degree isn’t going to mean anything if it’s so common that almost everyone has one. (Sort of like how having a high school diploma these days is pretty much meaningless…)</p>
<p>And aside from that, the average and above-average students are already getting degrees at a fairly high rate. Theoretically, the only way to significantly increase post-secondary enrollment is to cater to those who are below average. The idea of dumbing down higher education, to me, is incredibly sad. Degrees shouldn’t be dumbed down and handed out to everyone just to make our numbers look better.</p>
<p>Oh my god.</p>
<p>A ‘let’s see how many people we can force to get a college degree’ is a rather pointless endeavor and counter-productive to society. Sure, it’s easier to get a job with a degree, but why don’t we now force everyone to go through 4 years of college? Now what? You’ll need to have a Master’s to get a job? Why don’t we just go to school until we’re 80 and then start working?</p>
<p>Good. </p>
<p>Handing out degrees without halt only devalues them in the long run.</p>