If there is one thing that the new Obama administration could do right away to increase America’s competitiveness, it would be to increase access to graduate education for more Americans.
Consider the chart below, from which it is quite clear that we do a good job at producing undergraduates but fail to create enough advanced degree holders, especially at the doctoral level.
But programs like the H1-B are not the solution because they encourage us to become dependent on foreign talent while neglecting the vast pool of human capital we already poses as a large nation of over 300 million. Nor is a policy of making it easier for foreign students to stay after they get their advanced degrees a good bet. Such a policy would have the effect of crowding out domestic students, at least in the short term, including immigrants who grew up in America. Programs like the H1-B encourage more and more foreign students to compete for admission to a limited number of openings in graduate programs in hopes of getting their green cards with diplomas. We are better off making it easier for those who earn undergraduate credentials to continue to graduate school. One way of making this easy is to reduce the costs of graduate education.
The most aggressive policy would involve a grant program that would make graduate education free, especially at the doctoral level, where we seem to have a shortage. A really smart and aggressive program would make STEM graduate education free. Such a program would pay for itself. For example, a study by Arlene Holen for the Technology Policy Institute found that over a decade, high skilled workers generate as much as $100 billion in increased tax revenues. By easing access to graduate programs, we increase the number of highly skilled workers in the America, which has the effect of broadening the tax base.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Not the liberal actor
Mr. Jurek, as the possessor of a Ph.D. in Statistics and Quantiative Studies, I feel that I am qualified to address the subject you have brought up. I both agree and disagree with you. I agree with you when you say "... we already have millions of highly intelligent and creative people in America." But I disagree with you for two specific reasons when you say "... assure that those who can do the work academically have the opportunity to earn an advanced degree, regardless of their ability to pay for the education."
First, when you say "regardless of their ability to pay for the education," do you mean taxpayer subsidies? If yes, please explain why I, a taxpayer, should be forced to pay for a graduate student's education, unless I get to choose his or her major? After all, we have more than enough people with a Ph.D. in History, Arts (Liberal or otherwise), and Music. These people, although obviously smart, do NOT generate anywhere near the revenues in the Arlene Holen study you cite. If no, please explain just how you propose to pay for the educations.
Second, have you ever heard of scholarships? My personal observation (both for myself and my children) is that companies with specific demands are more than happy to provide all the education anyone wants. You say "We are better off making it easier for those who earn undergraduate credentials to continue to graduate school. One way of making this easy is to reduce the costs of graduate education." My contention is that such programs are already in place. All one has to do is take advantage of them.
You say "Expanding the nation’s highly skilled human capital is certainly one of the key aspects of a sound growth policy." With that statement I agree. But just throwing money at the problem is not (nor has it ever been) a solution. You say "... make graduate education free, ...." NOTHING is, ever has been, or ever will be, free! At what cost (ultimately) is your "free" graduate education program? Sounds like yet another vote buying scheme to me. I, of course, await your "setting me straight."
2 - Baronius
Far more important would be a policy of improving the quality of elementary, secondary, and undergraduate education.
In my father's generation, a kid with a high school diploma knew English, math, civics, and basic science. An employer could trust him. If he was college prep, like my parents, he'd know his way around a slide rule and speak Latin or German. If he was going to pursue a trade, he'd have shop experience.
Now, I'm glad the days of the slide rule are gone, but with the current generation, an employer can't be sure that a high school graduate can speak and write plainly, or handle basic math. As the quality of college graduates falls, we're heading into the days when a graduate degree will be required for nearly every career.
We don't need more people going to graduate school. We need high schools and undergraduate programs to turn out people who have sufficient learning to be able to handle their future jobs. We probably need to spend less on graduate programs.
3 - Dr Dreadful
I tend to agree with Baronius. Improving access to grad school doesn't address the underlying problem, which is a low number of available jobs juxtaposed with a large pool of available workers, which in turn forces employers to raise their qualifying standards in order to weed the mass of applicants down to a manageable number. Just because an employer is asking for an advanced degree doesn't mean that an advanced degree is necessary to do the job competently.
4 - Baronius
Right. The employer has to be able to defend every hiring decision in court, so he's got to weed out as many applicants as possible using quantifiables. But there is also a problem on the other side, that an employer can't trust that a high school or college graduate will be able to handle a job.
5 - Quincy
Employers shouldn't be accountable to the ridiculous state deciding whether or not they hired properly. So stupid.
6 - Igor
@1-Not: for the same reason that a multitude of American citizens paid taxes to build the hospital you were born in, to train the doctor that delivered you, the roads that your parents used to go to that hospital, the schools that you learned to read and write in, the universities that you used to get your fancy degrees.
You didn't come into this world fully formed and paying for everything as you used it. You were dependent on society, probably until you were in your 20s. Your predecessors voluntarily paid for building the society from which you have so greatly benefited.
And you are still benefiting from societies investment in roads, bridges, airports, seaports, subsidized oil and gas, armies to fight wars, and on and on.
But you KNOW all that, don't you? Or did it never occur to you that you owe so much to all those who came before and prepared the way for you?
...please explain why I, a taxpayer, should be forced to pay for a graduate student's education, ...
7 - Baronius
"And you are still benefiting from societies investment in roads, bridges, airports, seaports, subsidized oil and gas, armies to fight wars, and on and on."
Sure. And society is benefitting from Warren's work, both directly (through taxes) and indirectly. What does that have to do with paying for a grad student's education?
8 - Igor
It has everything to do with a grad students education. Just as society benefits from Warrens work, so to the presumption must be made (and usually Americans willingly presume) that the grad student will prove useful and a good investment.
9 - Baronius
Lots of things would be beneficial in the long run. It's not government's job to allocate our resources among them. Public goods - roads, bridges, etc. - are understandable, but not individual goods.
10 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
The human resources area of a major company must make certain that a professional job analysis accompanies every job description. The job analysis sets forth the various tasks required for each job and maps education and work experience to the ultimate job description. Then, the human resources area looks internally to fill positions. If they can't be filled internally, requisitions are ordered to fill externally. In a nutshell, that's how the process is supposed to work.
The Federal Jobs hiring is done with the aid of the Civil Service Examination. The public is invited to take the exam. Candidates are tested, graded and ranked. Then, the various federal agencies seek out candidates from the examination pool.
Hiring in the professions is different. People pursue a bachelor's degree or higher. They get experience. Upon passing a licensing examination, candidates apply for a license by presenting the examination results, education, the requisite work experience and first biennial registration fee. When the various Boards of Licensure are satisfied with a candidate's profile,( education, passing the licensing exam, experience etc.) a license is issued in the applicable profession. i.e. actuary, accountant, engineer, physician, lawyer etc.
11 - Dr Dreadful
Thanks for that Wikipedia entry, Dr Joe.
12 - Igor
@9-Baronius: so you say, but the evidence is against you. The GI Bill Of Rights did exactly that and produced the biggest boom in American history.
Public goods - roads, bridges, etc. - are understandable, but not individual goods.
13 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Dr. Dreadful, that's from my personal experience.
14 - roger nowosielski
It's precisely the shortcoming of Baronius' comment which provides the concept of "social capital" with all the context one needs to make the term meaningful.
It goes without saying, of course, that Baronius wouldn't object to the ordinary, commonplace notion of "personal capital."
15 - Baronius
Igor - Interesting point. I'll have to think about that. But from what I recall, it was a lot easier back then to become a professional with just a high school diploma. The legendary reporters hadn't gone to journalism school; the startups weren't necessarily tech firms like they are today. Even the shop worker earned a good living and contributed a lot to the post-war boom without going back to school. And the downside to wider availability to college was the subsequent generation's expectation of college, which helped move us toward the situation we have today with 25-year-old MBA's who have no skills or work experience.
16 - Dr Dreadful
Dr Joe, your comment struck me as bland and not contributing at all to the discussion.
17 - Clavos
Baronius @ # 15:
Good points all. It's also questionable as to how large a role the GI Bill (which I used to attend college myself, after service in Vietnam) played in the post war boom.
There were other factors that fueled the boom as well. Factors such as pent up consumer demand, especially for big ticket items like autos and appliances (I have a client who became super rich just by realizing that there would be an enormous demand for housing with very little inventory available at the close of the war, so he set himself up as a dealer in maufactured housing (trailers) and soon cornered the market for such in his home state, reaping enormous profits because he could supply the demand on an almost instantaneous basis), retooling of manufacturing from war production back to civilian manufacturing created an unprecedented hiring boom, aid programs for Europe like the Marshall Plan, created brand new sources of demand for American products -- the list goes on.
18 - Clavos
Regarding the pent up demand point; when my father got back home from WWII, he wanted to give my mother a convertible for Christmas that year. Auto production was a long way from fully ramped up after years of building tanks and deuce-and-a-halfs, so the dealer (Lincoln-Mercury), who could have sold ten times as many convertibles as he had in inventory, told my Dad he could have the Mercury convertible only if he also bought a Lincoln Cosmopolitan (forerunner to the Continental), which he of course, did.
19 - Glenn Contrarian
Baronius and Clav -
We all know people who didn't need college degrees to become wildly successful - Bill Gates and Steve Jobs come to mind - but in the big picture, looking at level of income as compared to level of education, the greater the level of education, generally speaking, the greater the level of income.
In other words, those who were successful even without college educations - as common as they seem to be - are but the exceptions to the rule.
20 - Clavos
Glenn, you're quite right, but missed my point, which is first of all at the end of WWII far more people didn't go to college than did, although the GI Bill was also used by many to go to trade school.
But again, there were many factors, some of which equaled or exceeded the effect the GI Bill had on the post war boom; there was a lot more going on than just the Bill.
21 - Glenn Contrarian
Clav -
True enough. Not to be snarky, but (after the recession that immediately followed WWII) the boom might also be attributed to (1) the 91% top marginal tax rate or (2) the Korean War - because wars do have a taxpayer-funded stimulative effect.
I know those opinions will probably make you want to do a face-palm in frustration at how That Liberal Just Doesn't Get It, but there it is.
22 - Baronius
Clav - the big sweep in growth since the 1940's has been due to technological improvements. Not just computers, either. Transistors, refrigeration, countless developments in agriculture and health care. Dozens of others.
Technology is the intersection between science and profitability. Tech growth was definitely affected by scientific advancement, but also by increased international trade, new debt instruments, and a low level of regulation. I doubt that any attempt to weight each element would have any meaning at all.
Glenn's link completely misses the point - many points, really. The value of scientific knowledge, the change in income over time, the role of education as a signalling mechanism. I really can't think of a point that Glenn's link doesn't miss.
23 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Glenn's example of Steve Jobs and others provides a good delineation of the primary driver for ingenuity.
This driver consists of a good idea coupled with the assertiveness to take the idea from concept to
practice or commercialization. My previous comment gets into the need for education at all. The primary
driver for the need for education is a thorough job analysis. The professions are also drivers of need for
education primarily at the collegiate level. The government is another driver because people need a
baccalaureate degree to sit for the Federal Civil Service Examination at certain pay grades.
The need for a graduate education must be thoroughly researched by candidates for these degrees or
people will graduate from programs without any firm direction for employment. The drivers for graduate
school education include academe, some think tanks and even some of the professions. For instance,
accountants must now have 30 graduate school credits in order to sit for the Uniform CPA Examination.
Previously, a baccalaureate was the basic requirement together with passing the CPA Exam with the
requisite diversified work experience in financial statement preparation and the attest function.
Other professions; such as, medicine and law require the basic BS/BA with 4 yrs.of a post-
baccalaureate program in either medicine or law. Medicine and law do not require grad. degrees per se.
Although, the law degree itself does have the title JD which is Doctor of Law or Jurisprudence.
24 - Glenn Contrarian
Baronius -
Glenn's link completely misses the point - many points, really. The value of scientific knowledge, the change in income over time, the role of education as a signalling mechanism. I really can't think of a point that Glenn's link doesn't miss.
Except for the fact that it was increased education by millions that enabled that boom in technical advancement. Look at what you listed:
Not just computers, either. Transistors, refrigeration, countless developments in agriculture and health care. Dozens of others. Technology is the intersection between science and profitability. Tech growth was definitely affected by scientific advancement, but also by increased international trade, new debt instruments, and a low level of regulation.
Do you really think it was just a few people who invented those technical, financial, and governmental tools? Baronius, when a group of people get together to discuss things, there's a very real synergy that develops...and the greater the level of education of the people within that group, the greater the intellectual synergy of that group.
Or to put it more simply, which is more inventive - a lab with one highly-educated leader and a bunch of high-school graduates, or a lab wherein most or all are college-educated? C'mon, now, Baronius, I know you understand this.
You can even apply market principles to this, for the more people that have college educations, the more they will be forced to compete with each other to develop the Next Big Thing.
THAT, sir, is what fueled - and is continuing to fuel - the world's technological boom. The greater the general level of education of a group - and the more easily they can communicate with each other - the more they will invent, develop, and bring to market the Next Big Thing, whatever it may be.
25 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
I would tend to agree with the above comment.