Bryan Caplan on The Case Against Education

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.5 • 772 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2018

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike welcomes George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan back to the show to talk about his latest book, '[The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money](http://amzn.to/2FTfqzI)'. In this episode, Mike and Dr. Caplan discuss the myths that people believe about the value of a college education, if college teaches people job-relevant skills (mostly no), if it teaches them 'how to think' (not as far as we can measure), if it's an economically smart move for the student (not in as many cases as you might think), and if having a lot of well-educated people benefits society in any measurable way (I bet you can guess the answer at this point). In spite of the depressing (at least to Mike) and impressive amount of data and analysis Dr. Caplan brings to bear, Mike makes a game attempt to salvage some meaning and value for his life's work. **Follow Bryan Caplan [on Twitter](http://politicsguys.com/bryan-caplan-interview/)** **[Bryan Caplan's previous Politics Guys appearance](http://politicsguys.com/bryan-caplan-interview/)** (where he and Mike discussed '[The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies](http://amzn.to/2HFEGKr)') **Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible.** If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to [politicsguys.com/support](http://www.politicsguys.com/support).Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the politics guys, a place for a bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American
0:04.8	politics and policy. I'm Michael Barronowski, a political scientist at North Kentucky University.
0:10.2	Before I get started with the show, I wanted to point out that today's interview is considerably
0:15.2	longer than most of our normal interviews. And that's for a couple of reasons. First off, is that
0:19.8	Professor Kaplan was
0:21.2	gracious enough to give almost an hour of his time to talk with me. And I truly appreciated it
0:28.0	because, and here's the second reason, is the topic we're talking about the value of higher
0:33.0	education and the policy implications of his research is something that absolutely fascinates me,
0:38.8	hits pretty close to home as I'm a college professor. And so also, I should point out,
0:44.3	Brian Kaplan is just a delightful guy. He's a, as a libertarian, he and I don't necessarily agree
0:50.5	on some issues, but he was so much fun to have on the show. I enjoyed our conversation
0:56.7	here even more than our conversation we had a while ago about his previous book on the myth
1:03.9	of the rational voter, which is also great as well. I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
1:08.1	So without any further ado, my talk with Professor Brian Kaplan.
1:12.7	My guest today is Brian Kaplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, and a blogger
1:17.3	at Econ Law. Professor Kaplan is the author of multiple books, including the myth of the rational
1:23.4	voter, which he and I talked about on the show back in November of 2016, selfish reasons to have
1:29.2	more kids, and his latest book, which may be his most controversial and contrarian book yet,
1:35.3	which is saying a lot, the case against education, why the education system is a waste of time
1:42.1	and money. That's Kaplan, welcome to the show.
1:45.3	Thanks a lot for helping me back.
1:47.1	You know, the United States spends a ton of money on higher education.
	...

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