Higher Education in Crisis | Timothy D. Terrell

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 20, 2018.
Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.

[@Hassenboy]

Just thinking about education always makes me very anxious. It's actually one of the few things that can make me anxious. I never liked to be in school/prison.

[@EarthSurferUSA]

May be you should study something productive that you have interest in. I don't know how a person would feel anxious by learning something that excites him/her. I got much better with studying in my college days, and test day did not even make me anxious if I knew the material. Look man, I barely graduated HS, but 15 years later, finishing up a couple of engineering degrees, (part time while working full time. no loans), in class with people who were already engineers in their company, I became the first person getting out of class on test day, still getting 90% grade or higher. Man, I can't express how cool that was. That taught me, your mind is like your body. The more you work it out, the better it gets also. A farm animal can not make the decision to keep learning things. Humans can, and it is human to think. Just learn something productive, and enjoy being human. :)

[@Hassenboy]

@@EarthSurferUSA I always had it very easy in school, too easy actually. You don't learn anything you couldn't learn on your own anyways, you learn super slowly, you are forced spending time with humans you otherwise wouldn't choose to interact with. University was only 5 out of 20 years. Most of the time you spend in elementary school and gymnasium, where you don't get to study what you're interested in. And you are punished for excellence.

[@chiefsittingstill6061]

Good lecture but clearly needs to be longer as it looked like there was some interesting material there on the slides that wasn't really covered.

[@yttean98]

I am not an American what I cannot understand American politicians is that why can agree to spend BILLIONS and billions on the military budget on a drop of a hat and CUTTING back on education. To me it's insane. Maybe MISESmedia experts can explain this rational.

[@Tenebrousable]

They are very not cutting back schooling funding. Teacher numbers are fairly stagnant, but admin numbers have been exploding for decades. Usually they are paid even more than theteachers. They gobble up the funding and it subtracts it from the classroom. It's the central planner information problem. They know not what they are doing, and are trying to figure it out, gathering, processing and sending up the chain info. And it's all useless. I repeat, the funding is more like exploding, not cut, it's just wasted ever more efficiently. Gist of Timothy hear talk is, if I may try to boil down to it. Even if the funding was more efficient. It still would be useless. You don't get more usefull academics by paying more people to go to college. You get more baristas with a college degree. It's the same in Europe where I am. Free education and we get 1 out of 10 using the education in their profession, to any significant degree. 9 out of 10 education dollars, when it's paid by the state, is not only wasted, but may be counterproductive too. Because you lower the standards for those that do use the degree.

[@EarthSurferUSA]

Money does not make education better. What is taught (especially philosophically), makes all the difference in the world. Today, a child of the age of 2 learning how to talk, is correctly, by human nature, discovering the world around him/her. Building concepts more effectively than the average college graduate can today.

[@denverbevins4052]

This is similar to the Musk success story - or any other tale of what is so often called crony capitalism. We love to blame businesses for gaining money or favor from government; however, federal government decision-makers hold the purse and are sworn to honor limited government. We should shun the term crony capitalism and adopt the term "crony governance." It isn't right to blame schools or businesses for seeking money - they don't have the power to tax and are always a few quarters away from certain death. Subsidies are taxes which prop up some and fatten others. Those which should have been allowed to fail now consume precious capital from other, viable efforts. When the bubble bursts, and it always will, how many students will be left with degrees which will not transfer or cannot be confirmed via transcripts? Bubbles are a storehouse of suffering.

[@Pdrum2]

This is all assuming that the purpose of education is getting a job

[@andrius799]

And 4 90% of the people isn´t that the goal? Is subjective if higher education is a consumption good [Learing 4 it´s own sake or whatever] or a capital good [learning to become better/more productive]

[@Tenebrousable]

Pdrum2, He addressed your objection too. No you don't make people "better" in college. They are just as culturally, intellectually and politically apathetic as before.

[@EarthSurferUSA]

Yea yea, that is what we are told, "Get a job". Well, I did that a lot and came up with a better plan. After learning from both college and my employer's, I started my own business. Any communist nation can provide some jobs, so I think our goals should be higher than that. After experiencing my own business that I was only able to start because I built up my skils, I never want a JOB (Just Over Broke), again.