Giving Compass' Take:

• Bryan Caplan argues that education is primarily signaling, and does not provide social returns on the scale that justifies the cost. Robert Wiblin provides the counter-argument in defense of the importance of education.

• Does your own experience with education match Caplan's description? How can the benefit of education for society be maximized? 

• Learn how consumers of higher education value it.

Bryan Caplan’s claim in The Case Against Education is striking: education doesn’t teach people much, we use little of what we learn, and college is mostly about trying to seem smarter than other people – so the government should slash education funding.

It’s a dismaying – almost profane – idea, and one people are inclined to dismiss out of hand. But having read the book, I have to admit that Bryan can point to a surprising amount of evidence in his favour.

After all, imagine this dilemma: you can have either a Princeton education without a diploma, or a Princeton diploma without an education. Which is the bigger benefit of college – learning or convincing people you’re smart? It’s not so easy to say.

For this interview, I searched for the best counterarguments I could find and challenged Bryan on what seem like his weakest or most controversial claims.

Wouldn’t defunding education be especially bad for capable but low income students? Shouldn’t we just make incremental rather than radical changes to policy? If you reduced funding for education, wouldn’t that just lower prices, and not actually change the number of years people study? Is it really true that students who drop out in their final year of college earn about the same as people who never go to college at all?

Read the full debate about education between Bryan Caplan and Robert Wiblin at 80000 Hours.