Despite that no one on the earth can discredit the significance of receive education, we may not know or rarely thought about a question: “Who in fact gain the most from our formal education system?”
As we have discussed in another place , formal education systems act like a filter, only if you pass the requirement for one level of study, you have the opportunity to advance to the next level. Everyone knows that people get higher degrees are paid better, and less likely to be unemployed, live longer and happier, however, not everyone has the opportunity to receive such education even if an opportunity is offered – we are limited by our talent.
Come back to the question for this talk, four types of people gain excess benefits from our formal educational systems:
People who just qualified for the desired training: With all screening process through the entrance tests, people ended up attending the same school for the same major and staying in the same class still differ from each other substantially. In this case, those whose ranked at the bottom of all students will benefit the most.
Admitted by a famous school: With the same talent, relative to those who are admitted to a regular school, those who study in a famous schools will benefit more. Not only do students in famous schools get better teachers with more favorite conditions for study, graduation from a famous school itself is a very attractive label for success after graduation.
Get into a money-making major: Even though you and your classmates graduate from exactly the same school in the same year, the major you choose sometimes make huge differences. For example, before 2008, a student who liked computer science in fact got into a computer science major could get a job offer before graduation. A company even offers to pay your student loan as a condition to hire you.
Find a job right after graduation: No matter from which school you studies and what areas you are majored in, as long as you get a job right after graduation, you are among those who benefit most from the formal educational systems.
Jim Sweet, 7/9/2011
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