Autodidact: The Unnecessary Leper

Economics Political Theory
1

The blind acceptance of formalized of education has obscured the worth of autodidacts. It’s all about college degrees. What does it matter if you have X degree from X college? What matters is that the employer accurately assesses your level of education. Relying on degrees to assess a candidate’s value is a very blunt instrument. Also, it contributes to unnecessarily wasted years and dollars by students. Here’s my proposal.

There should be testing services. They can provide stock tests (like SATs, for instance) or they can tailor them to meet their clients needs. The candidates for employment could then take these tests. They might take general tests as a way of providing immediate feedback to potential employers or they might take tests as the employer requests it. Testing services could provide a VERY accurate assessment of one’s knowledge on the information tested and could easily replace the need for degrees.

I think this would tend to increase the supply of qualified workers, but more importantly, would aid in true valuation. A more underlying effect might be to delegitimize the emphasis on formal education (my hope is public education) and encourage people to act more independently. I also feel the tests themselves would evolve into better assessment tools. I think a shift toward emphasizing the testing of raw ability or IQ would be an effective tool.

2

If autodidacts think that they’re smarter than college-grads, then no one’s stopping them from creating a testing service to demonstrate that. You sound like a social engineer.

3

I generally agree with your sentiment. I find many libertarians have a disdain for post secondary institutions, possibly because of the general leftist tendencies of such institutions. However, in my experience, the marxian premise that social institutions condition one and truly form one’s identity and mentality are quite off. When I started going to university I was a statist social democrat, now I am a market left libertarian, the influence from the left has obviously not succeeded, and further my critical thinking skills have greatly improved through the education I have recieved at post secondary institutions.

Such institutions may not be good in and of themselves, but the education they present is quite useful, and while there are some parts of the system that require revision, rejecting the whole premise seems quite rash.

4

First, let’s differentiate. There’s education, and there’s training. Employers, mostly, are more interested in training, and I’d argue that it makes more sense to rely on institutions and pieces of paper when it comes to training, whereas for education they’re pretty much useless. I’d say education can take place more effectively in a library than a school, but not training. I’ll trust a self-trained philosopher, but not so much a self-trained nurse. Even vocational and licensing testing don’t work for nursing - you can’t test everything that can happen, so it makes far more sense to rely on trusted schools.

College education
5

Huh? I’m most certainly not a socail engineer, at least in the sense of advocating coercion to implement my wishes. I respect people’s rights and don’t presume to be superior to anyone - far, far from it. In fact, I would refer to myself as a moderate anarchist (don’t ask! :slight_smile: ).

I also don’t think autodidacts are necessarily smarter than the formally educated, but I would tend to think in those terms, to a point. If you took the average college grad and compared him to the average autodidact, I think the self-educated would do very well. Of course, they’re both self-educated, in a sense. It’s just that the autodidact seems to have a more genuine love of knowledge and doesn’t obfuscate the educational process by limiting it to only what others tell him, i.e. teachers. Independence says a lot about a person, if considered w/i a reasonable context.

I would love to run a testing service. I know they already exist, but the blind acceptance of formalized education is a big obstacle. I would much rather see someone’s test score on whatever I think is important to know than to see that they got a degree from Auburn. Once again, I think the cost of higher education, inflated by government intervention, is WAY WAY WAY too valued by society and that valuation, as I see it, is due in most part to government propaganda (and social engineering). Public Service Announcement by Tupac: “Hey, yo bro, you gots to stay in school!” I HATE that claptrap! For whatever reason, it makes me think about, “You need to give back. Remember where you came from. Keep it real.” BARF!!!

If you want to know if someone can add 2 + 2, which method most clearly illustrates whether they’re capable: Finding out there GPA at Uncle Sam Elementary School or writing 2 + 2 on a piece of paper and having them figure it out? In one instance you assume things they know and in the other you KNOW things they know.

Most people: “Must sit in a school. Must sit beside others. Must listen to someone tell me things. Must cost 10’s of thousands of dollars.” You could go to the thrift store and get 20 or 30 really good books and get one hell of a good education, all for about $40-$60. And you can get that education while sitting on the toilet!

For pete’s sake, open a freakin book and read it! Buy a dvd or cd! You don’t need to fork over gobs of your money or taxpayer money in order to learn Algebra or History. Sure, as you get into things like medical fields, formalized education may become more necessary, but that’s mainly because there are fewer people talented enough to teach it and that small number is almost always going to be in a formalized setting. Also, the formalized approach has an economic incentive for those following that route. It’s hard to blame someone for getting a degree when they’re so valued in our current society. It allows the degreed to earn more money. But that’s a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: “Education (formalized) is important. You need it to make a good living.” They ‘need’ it because there’s a bias towards it.

I live in the deep south, in the U.S., and I remember not so long ago, one ‘compassionate’ argument people used against interracial marriage was that their offspring would be stigmatized mulattos. Well duh, you’re the one stigmatizing them!

6

I think you’re quite right. Excellent point.

7

Degrees are a very useful way for employers to profile potential employees. If I get 100 resumes for a job application, and I know I want someone highly-skilled, I might just throw away the 50 with poor credentials. That could mean tossing out people who didn’t graduate from college. Its not that I wouldn’t think those people might be suitable (they might be), its just that I wouldn’t have time to interview 100 people. Hiring someone, especially someone new to the industry who would need a lot of training, is a risky proposition. Employers want to be as sure as they can be that their hiree will get the job done.

A testing service might test what you know, but it can’t really say anything about your work ethic, problem-solving skills, or a host of other things a good college degree represents (consider the many different qualities an engineering grad from MIT must have). I agree that, ideally, we’d have a more effecient means of profiling people than 4-year degrees (a lot of it wasted time). I barely learned anything in college which I didn’t teach myself. I found most lectures useless and boring, and much of the subject matter rather useless. I think a big reason for the popularity of college is that people enjoy the “experience”.

If autodidacts believe they are qualified regardless of not holding any formal degrees, then they should be able to show it from past accomplishments. They’d have a 4 year head start on college grads to do so.

8

I agree with you. I recently had an encounter with somebody from high school who tried to use that line to guilt trip me into attending a class reunion after I had politely declined the invitation. I told her, “I remember where I came from. I also remember who helped me get to where I am, and who hindered me. You might not have hindered me, but you certainly didn’t help me. I don’t owe you a demon-ridden thing.”

9

How can private testing services compete with the vast, state-funded universities? Even private schools are reliant on students being able to get publicly subsidized loans, to say nothing of extra Federal and State funding. Furthermore most employers went to university themselves, and are biased in favor of those who underwent a similar training regimen.

Get rid of the state and I’m sure that education would meet the needs of the market far more effectively.

10

Unfortunately, getting rid of the state is easier said than done. It’s not an entity that you can just strike down with a single overwhelming blow. Nor can you abolish the state by killing all of the politicians (though the thought of all of Congress impaled Vlad Tepes-style in front of the Jefferson Monument has its appeal). Instead, you have to kill the state by convincing people to abandon their belief in the legitimacy of the state, a death of a thousand cuts. Every person you persuade to accept and live by individualist ideals is one less that the state can point to and say, “He consents to be governed by us”.

11

I don’t think the improvement would be dramatic; education already does a pretty good job. I think what it would do is become a hell of a lot cheaper, freeing up resources (such as extremely intelligent PhDs who teach uninterested undergrads) for other uses.

12

I agree that the employer is not concerned with what it costs someone to be educated. However, I don’t know that I agree that credentials are a good or efficient screen. The burden of a candidate proving themselves can be placed via the testing process as well as the credentialing process. These tests can be the mass produced variety, tailor-made, or anywhere in between. They can be very efficient at assessing one’s level of education as opposed to interpreting the significance of one’s degrees.

In a bigger sense, keeping candidates off the market and in school makes for a less productive society. The educational period could be drastically reduced by autodidcatism. Also, a person that teaches would become available for other areas of the market, making more significant contributions.

I have to disagree. If I had two candidates and they scored equally on a test but one gained his education eschewing the formal route, I would admire his resourcefulness much more than the formally educated. For someone to have enough motivation to go into the free market and educate themselves and not follow the pack mentality, to me, says a lot about the work ethic and maturity of that individual. I think the formalization of the education process tends to cloak it in mystery and feeds the dependency state of mind.

And I think many of them doing prove it, tending to be entrepreneurial. But the idea of formalized education is so ingrained in today’s society that very few are even conscious of an alternative. As it exists, I would imagine there’s probably about 1,000 formally educated people to every 1 equally, but self-educated people. I’d also like to see the legitimzation of the autodidact simply because I think it’s story of success can sully government propaganda as well as enlighten those that are self-educating. If the government had NO involvement in the educational process this thread probably wouldn’t even exist. I’m sorry, but I just hate 'em!!! [:O]

13

I agree completely.

I was trying to help explain why the current system holds sway over the market even though it is clearly horribly inefficient. I do not think that the state can be “got rid of” flippantly.

14

Oh, it CAN be. Look at history. There’s no reason to believe we can’t occupy that revolutionary place in time. But you’re right, it wouldn’t be a flippant good riddance. “Boys, it’s time for some blood-letting.” lol. jk, of course…

15

Slowly but surely, the state expands it’s nannycare. This stuff just makes me ill. If they could just have our kids a little longer, they could do even MORE good!

From The Yahoo Newsroom:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080130/cm_usatoday/ourviewonearlyeducationprekprogramspayoff;_ylt=Ago3d.ws9KAxIZ4X0VwGO1D9wxIF

Oklahoma enjoys a popular image as a state of wildcatters, hardscrabble farmers and rodeo riders. So it might come as something of a surprise to learn that national organizations rate the state as tops in the USA in — preschool.

Oklahoma offers “universal” preschool, which means that parents of all incomes have the option of sending their 4-year-olds to a state-sponsored preschool, transportation included. The state also insists that all preschool teachers hold bachelor’s degrees, and they are paid the same as regular school teachers.

States have good reasons to aspire to universal preschool, especially high-quality programs with good teachers and low student-to-teacher ratios. Universal preschool can help fill a void: Poor families have access to Head Start. Well-to-do families pay for quality preschools out of their pockets. In between are lower-middle class families whose children badly need the readiness skills that preschool provides.

Oklahoma educators credit their decade-old preschool program with pushing up reading and math scores in the lower grades, and with raising achievement by low-income children.

Elite preschools — such as the experimental Perry Preschool in Michigan, where researchers followed the poor and minority children who attended that school well into adulthood — return more than $16 to society (in the form of lower crime and higher employment) for every dollar invested, according to the non-profit High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. Even decent-quality preschools produce gains in the $4 to $10 range, other researchers found.

States pay a price, however, for pushing too fast for universal systems.

Florida rushed its preschool system out the door with seemingly little attention to setting standards. Florida cosmetologists face stiffer licensing than preschool teachers, and preschool operators there are free to pursue a choose-your-own-curriculum policy.

Making Florida’s preschool program more worrisome is the low funding. Among the 38 states that underwrite preschool, Florida ranks 35th. Universal preschool is a great idea that can turn bad when implementation outstrips the money.

Preschool classrooms with too many children and too few teachers have surprisingly high expulsion rates, researchers reported earlier this month. The ratio in preschools shouldn’t rise above 10 students for each teacher, they recommended.

Most states are proceeding with appropriate caution. Virginia recently scaled back its ambitious universal preschool plans when its state budget veered toward deficit. Alabama set high standards for its preschool program but is starting slowly, fearful of compromising quality.

Several of the 2008 presidential candidates have embraced the concept of universal preschool, generally without providing much detail. States looking for an effective model can consult officials in Oklahoma. They did it Sooner.

16

P.S. I’m sure the author of this article received a VERY formal education.

17

You won’t hear me disagree with you that formal education is very wasteful. However, the problem is getting any other sort of metric to encompass the things signified by a college degree. A grad from a great school might have spent 60-100 hours a week for four to five years on an undergraduate degree alone. How can you measure that sort of work ethic and dedication with a test? I don’t think its nearly as easy as you make it out to be. Intelligence and knowledge are, in my opinion, not always the most important qualities to measure.

In addition to this, many students like the college “experience”, which mitigates the costs to the student somewhat. While I do agree that state subsidization produces inefficiency, the enormous amount of charitable contributions to universities also has a similar effect. I’m actually not sure if state subsidies are bigger than voluntary ones - Harvard alone has something like a $25b endowment.

I think I read in Forbes that the school which was most responsible for the richest people alive was in fact no school at all, because so many (Gates, Ellison, etc) didn’t graduate from college.

18

It won’t help. Overthrowing a government by force might remove the existing tyranny, but let’s face it: V for Vendetta was a romantic fantasy. If you overthrow the government, the people will just demand another one. The new government, no matter how carefully designed to protect liberty, will eventually be corrupted and used to violate liberty.

Oh, fuck it. You bring the tar, I’ll get the feathers.

19

The adventages of such education are: meeting pople who like you want to learn the same things or about the same, with whom you can exchang information, because it is not an easy thing to find what you need by yourself; to remain in the limits of practicability of what you study or to have these limits in view; discipline, which is necessary in learning anything; and time which too is an essential part…

20

I guess I’m not really sure what’s trying to be achieved here. Yes, state funding of certain forms of education makes it more difficult for people who want to use alternative forms. Private universities often have trouble competing with large state-funded research institutions, and autodidacts undoubtedly have it even harder.

I would say, though, that an autodidact who tries to educate herself in philosophy is at an extreme disadvantage on account of the importance of dialogue in developing good philosophical views. These message boards are no substitute for a university atmosphere, and an hour-long conversation with a professor is probably just as useful as reading a book (unless it’s a really important book, of course). Most autodidacts I know are aware of this, and do maintain lines of conversation with professional philosophers as part of their education. If you know professors, and they know how good you are, then ask for recommendations. If you’re trying to get into a graduate program, and you’ve really done the work that a college-graduating philosophy major has done, then that could be good enough for some universities.

I would say, though, that self-education could likely never substitute for a PhD level education in a university, and so I’d say that a university looking to hire professors would be absolutely correct in not giving much credence to an autodidact in the hiring process. It’s just not feasible to teach yourself what five to seven years of focused, monitored study can. To think otherwise is essentially the same as thinking you could become an olympic-level athlete without ever having a coach. Perhaps some extremely gifted people could, but it’s not reasonable to think that you’re one of them (and if you were, you’d probably have been snatched up by now and forced into a graduate program by people eager to see what you could do).

In other fields like business, being an autodidact would certainly be a disadvantage. But the beauty of the market is that if you think you’re smart enough, and you can get someone to agree with you, then that’s all it takes. The state surely makes it difficult to convince people (though private universities would probably fulfill the same function in the absence of state-funded education), but that hasn’t stopped the slew of relatively uneducated (formally, that is) people who populate the highest positions in the world’s economy. If you’re really so much better than college-educated people, then prove it.