Thursday, April 22, 2010

Capitalism Fail: Fuinding for Education

People who will benefit the most are least likely to attend college.
The problem is lack of tuition funding options make education prohibitively expensive for people who most likely to benefit from it. Isn't capitalism supposed ensure that that more profitable ideas get funded over less profitable ones?


Who Gains the Most From a College Education? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com: "Who Gains the Most From a College Education?
By FREAKONOMICS

A new study finds that the students who are least likely to go to college (based on family background, abilities, and friend group) are the ones with the most to gain from a degree. Jennie E. Brand and Yu Xie find that the unlikeliest male college graduates earned 30% more over their lifetimes than comparable men who earned only a high school degree. In contrast, male college graduates most likely to go to college earned only 10% more than their non-college-educated counterparts. Brand and Xie observed a similar trend for women. The authors believe that the tough labor market faced by non-college-educated, disadvantaged students partly explains the results, but they point to an additional factor: economic motivation. “For students from disadvantaged groups, college is a novelty that demands economic justification,” Brand said. “By contrast, for students from advantaged backgrounds, college is a culturally expected norm. Economic gain is less of a motivation.”"

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