Education’s Role in the Great Divergence
Over a glass of wine with a friend last weekend, he casually suggested that too many people are going to college. I immediately responded that 1. That’s not what he’d tell his kids; 2. He has a bachelor’s and a law degree, so it was nice of him to pull the ladder up after him; 3. The best economic projections suggest we need more college graduates, not less; and 4. A college degree is excellent protection against job market problems. I should have also pointed out an excellent series of articles by Timothy Noah.
Back in September Slate’s Noah did a series on what he called The Great Divergence documenting the growing income inequality in this country over the last 30 years and exploring potential causes for it. He did a series of