I'm a left-wing, pinko, greenie-type at heart, but i still like an occasional dollop of right wing economics in my blogging diet. So I came across this gem from The Daily Reckoning's right-of-right Bill Bonner, when talking about the malaise apparently affecting the western world, and attributing it to the decline in marginal utility across most sectors:

Take education, for example. A little of it goes a long way. When a person learns to read and write, the whole world of ideas and information opens up to him. Whether more inputs of formal education actually pay off or not is open to question. Clearly, beyond some point, they don’t. Americans spend twice as much per student as they did 40 years ago. The educational attainment results are about the same. Which suggests that the marginal utility of investment in the education industry declined to zero 4 decades ago.

 

Most the world’s great ideas…great books…and great inventions were produced by people who spent relatively little time in formal school settings. But now, every goofball and half-wit is expected to have a college degree. What do you expect? A college degree isn’t really worth very much.

His assertion that educational costs have increased is backed up by this graph from wikipedia.

I can't comment on why costs are rising, but it certainly seems that this is a problem in search of a solution.

Its obvious that e-learning is a low cost way to deliver learning content. Its just as obvious that it can't replace a full educational system.

But can it play a part? Just think that in this modern information age that we still need lecture theatres full of hundreds of students while a lecturer stands in front and talks - why? Yes, there needs to be engagement between educators and students, but that isnt actually achieved by the classic lecture hall full of students.

Just thinking about it now, it seems so obvious that this is an anchronism, like a dynosaur in an Apple store.

I'm sure we can do better.