The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan

[collegehacked]

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. The book breaks down signaling theory and explains the economic theory behind why and how employers value degrees because they signal certain things like "social conformity," "ability to work on something for a while," etc. This short article gives a pretty good taste of what the book's all about and will, I think, help you be more enthusiastic about doing college in a cheaper, quicker, more non-traditional way. 

https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/04...sig_1.html

Essentially, he argues against human capital purists who believe that "degree = skills" and that is why employers hire people with degrees. But Caplan uses a lot of stats to show how degree doesn't really equal skills and in fact it's more just a social part we're playing to prove that we are a certain kind of person (hard worker, conformist) rather than that we learned specific things. Sure, we still do learn things in college, but Caplan's data suggests it's a lot less than anyone would like to admit.

Thank you for reading my book report just wanted to share this with people who I thought would care.