Don Boudreaux poses an interesting Question About Institutions and Incentives.
…would the quality of college education in the U.S. rise (or at least not fall) if every American were assigned to a government owned and operated college nearest to his or her residence?
I’ve made the comparison between college and K-12 education enough in conversations I can’t believe that I have never written about this comparison. Yet, so far a search of my archives turns up empty.
The point I’ve made in many conversations is that college education has a higher degree of choice and user costs than K-12 education, which drives more competition between schools to provide quality education at a reasonable price, and that’s one reason it is generally better than K-12.
Boudreaux poses the question well. It would be tough to imagine a college system that looked like our K-12 education system would be better than what we have now.
Update: I found one post so far where I wrote that more free-market-like dynamics in college education should be applied to K-12.
It’s funny how people assume that K-12 and college educations have different market principles and follow different economic laws.
i think its apples to oranges. college ‘eductation’ has a cost because of the forseen ‘value’ :: economic return on the investment of tuition. k-12 ‘education’ is a public service because there are some really poor and under-educated folks around. my mum had 60+ kids one year.
tbh…if we can just teach kids to read, they can learn the rest on their own.
Pingback: The spider and the starfish | Our Dinner Table