Education? Only If Economically Justified !

Economics professor ...

Peter Morici talked on 5/3/2012
about his Des Moines Register article
on the value of a college degree
in comparison to tuition costs,
accrued debt, and salaries earned after graduation. He said that employers require college degrees
for jobs that do not pay enough to justify college costs, in part due to high schools' failure to adequately prepare students for the work force. He urged incoming college students to major in science fields, which pay higher salaries and provide specific job skills.

IMHO, his advice is a perpetuation of the Doctrine of "the Wealth of Tunnel Visions".

The idea is that everyone
randomly takes his or her
own path of specialization
and then
out of this sum of random actions,
together we form a seamless
network (no holes or gaps)
of ingenuity for tackling
all the world's problems.

There are no cracks in that theory.
Are there?

We are raising one generation after the next of of narrow-minded "specialists".

Few will have a broad enough of a mind frame to take in the big picture.
Few will grasp what is going on overall within our civilizational system (our civilizational complex).

So what happens?

We will have a mass of narrowed minded specialists who are each incapable of engaging in "(truly) critical thinking".
(More on (truly) critical thinking here, here, here, and here,)

Each holds the hammer of his trade.
And every problem is merely a simple nail to be tacked down with a swift and thoughtless smack down of the specialist's one and only tool.

Our problem is y=f(x)?
No problem!
I went to Z school.
"The ANSWER" is Z101 (the basic course in my Z school).

1) For the "economics" specialist, the answer is this:
[free markets]

2) For the "politics" specialist, the answer is this:
[compromise]

3) For the "business" specialist, the answer is this: [BAU]

4) For the "technology" specialist, the answer is this: [the singularity]