One problem here is that, at least in my humble opinion, education should ultimately be (or trend towards becoming) a basic human right. Repackaging debt as wage garnishment while making job placement easier makes the job market more efficient, certainly. I can understand why people are excited. It doesn't fix the underlying structural issues in the American education system.
I agree. I think the US system is terrible. We should not stop providing public education merely because someone achieves the age of 18 or 12th grade. But I don't see how it can be fixed politically.
In a functioning education system (which the US system arguably isn't), 12 years of schooling is more than sufficient to produce a well rounded person capable of being a productive and engaging member of civil society. It is not clear to me what the societal benefit is beyond that.
I can agree that college is becoming a band-aid to make up for the serious problems found in earlier years. To the point that, in recognition of this, many now call people who have not graduated from college 'uneducated', which is pretty sad when you think that 12 years of completed schooling hasn't provided an education. But the solution for healing a wound isn't to provide a more affordable band-aid. It is to address what is causing the wound in the first place.
It need not be a difficult fix politically. Nobody, who isn't emotionally or financially invested in college being a band-aid, is going to argue against educating our youth in the K-12 system. The only roadblock is getting someone to think about the issue, as the advertising done by the colleges has left us believing that education simply isn't provided any other way other than through colleges.
Do you think that this special value of 12 years will be the proper amount of public education forever? It seems to me that as robots and software take more of the lower valued jobs, we will need to expect more education for a citizen to be able to contribute. Institutions will have to adapt.
12 years of schooling is more than sufficient. That does not mean that 12 is the magic number exactly. But yes, I believe that <=12 will remain sufficient for public schooling forever. Not to be confused with education. There is no timeframe on education. Education never stops.
Robots and software actually make the world simpler. When we were an agrarian society, farmers had to know how to do basically everything imaginable to be able to be productive. It took a lifetime of training, starting as soon as you were old enough to walk, in order to learn the ropes and take in the deep knowledge passed from generation to generation. Industrialization simplified contributions so that one only had to specialize, negating the need to be there from birth. The information revolution simplified things further still. Now we have teenagers who are starting highly successful software businesses after spending a few months in front of a computer. The next revolution, whatever it may be, will only make contributions even more accessible, just as each time before.
I like that optimism. I can also imagine a future where anybody can contribute. But I know plenty of people right now who are wondering if they should get a master's degree instead of stopping at a bachelor's degree in order to get a job that can pay off their education debt.
