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1. Overview

Section 1 is the overview. Section 2 contains technical references for transforming markdown to a scientific paper. Section 3 is a reading list. Section 4 is own references to other repository locations for data analysis and so on. Section 5 contains miscellaneous notes.

2. TODO

  1. Collapse extraneous sections
  2. Rewrite overview to correctly identify sections

3. Justification of Work by Semester

  1. Spring 2018
  2. Gathered original data. Mostly identified on GitHub in ../udacity-exploratory-analysis/do-files-and-pager-artifacts
  3. Fall 2018
  4. Generate reading list of key books, articles, and people
  5. Write a synthesis - review/summarize each source and extract related info
  6. Repeat attitudinal survey to create minimal panel
  7. Spring 2019
  8. Repeat attitudinal survey to create 3-5 period panel
  9. If it's not done earlier, write 1 or 2 articles for publication this semester

2. Paper Technical Build Process

  1. How to change dissertation.md into a scientific pdf: https://gist.github.com/maxogden/97190db73ac19fc6c1d9beee1a6e4fc8
  2. Incorporate LaTeX and markdown with https://www.madoko.net/

3. Reading List

Books

  1. Caplan, The Case against Education
  2. Craig, 2018, A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College
  3. Blake, The Expertise Economy
  4. Tooley, The Beautiful Tree
  5. Miller, 2014, The Self-Organizing Revolution

People

  1. Ryan Craig
  2. Michael Horn
  3. Clayton Christensen

Papers

  1. Armstrong, J. Scott. "Natural learning in higher education." Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA, 2012. 2426-2433.
  2. Felska, Angelika. "Folk High School as an Educational Alternative for Older Adults." (2017): 89-102.
  3. Carneiro, Pedro, James J. Heckman, and Edward J. Vytlacil. "Estimating marginal returns to education." American Economic Review 101.6 (2011): 2754-81.
  4. Harmon, Colm, Hessel Oosterbeek, and Ian Walker. "The returns to education: Microeconomics." Journal of economic surveys 17.2 (2003): 115-156.
  5. Holzman, Lois. Schools for growth: radical alternatives to current education models. Routledge, 2016.
  6. Kejriwal, Mohitosh, Xiaoxiao Li, and Evan Totty. "Multidimensional Skills and the Returns to Schooling: Evidence from an Interactive Fixed Effects Approach and a Linked Survey-Administrative Dataset." (2018).
  7. Tholen, Gerbrand. "The limits of higher education institutions as sites of work skill development, the cases of software engineers, laboratory scientists, financial analysts and press officers." Studies in Higher Education (2018): 1-12.
  8. Sitzmann, Traci, and Justin M. Weinhardt. "Approaching evaluation from a multilevel perspective: A comprehensive analysis of the indicators of training effectiveness." Human Resource Management Review (2017).
  9. a term in the literature which we are not as much interested in: a. Foley, Regina M., and Lan-Sze Pang. "Alternative education programs: Program and student characteristics." The High School Journal 89.3 (2006): 10-21. b. Lange, Cheryl M., and Sandra J. Sletten. "Alternative Education: A Brief History and Research Synthesis." For full text: http://www. nasdse. org/forum. htm., 2002.
  10. Ewert, Stephanie, and Robert Kominski. "Measuring alternative educational credentials: 2012." Household Economic Studies (2014): P70-138.

Online Articles

  1. Vandivier, Alternative Paths to Traditional Education
  2. http://www.educationrevolution.org/store/resources/alternatives/introtoalternatives/
  3. case against education related articles: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:drC9cH-mewUJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=%22the+case+against+education%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,21
  4. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/09/26/growing-number-colleges-partner-google-offer-credit-its-new-it
  5. https://www.insidehighered.com/content/alternative-credentials-and-emerging-pathways-between-education-and-work
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JE4p_EuWoc
  7. https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/177799922435/school-district-reports-test-scores-rise-with
  8. http://connectingcredentials.org/data-point-degree-and-nondegree-credentials-held-by-labor-force-participants/
  9. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-11-07-the-rise-of-early-career-enhancers-in-education

4. Own Technical References

  1. Udacity Study

5. Miscellaneous Notes

  1. top econ journals; prefer top 10 https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.journals.all.html

  2. read more!!!! in prestigious journals by famous people. pick one, make it highly cited and relevant to other prestigious work (currenter is better). 10 - 20 pages

  3. bryan is more optimistic on alternative education for real learning but maybe not for job outcomes (this is where I can maybe be interesting, LATER PAPER TOO ORIGINAL)

  4. Portfolio theory and simultaneous operation of a portfolio as 1) a credential/signal, and, 2) an output of productivity and geniune learning/skill evidence (LATER PAPER TOO ORIGINAL)

  5. Some directly relevant papers saying 'dearth of data, need new data' (you can cite them, but it's not enough and bordering on too original)

  6. site boring papers and try to be a boring paper (add the interesting stuff on low key or later)

  7. building on/referencing Caplan's work is a risky move (do it low key or in a later paper)

  8. Recommended approach: FIND PAPERS ON RETURNS TO ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION and say "hey I'm just doing another one of these things nbd...low key on low key my man u kno..."

  9. Paper 2 is the emphasis: comparing traditional employment outcomes to alternative employment outcomes and then my measures of alternative employment outcomes

  10. classifiers can be included or ignored - not recommended as seperate economic paper (go ahead an include for now; knock it out of the park)

  11. attitudinal survey is currently fit for a think tank, not an academic job; will that change with panel? idk. (maybe a lower quality paper later on)

  12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JE4p_EuWoc

    1. ~20 min define alternative credential as other than 4 year degree a. "It's also more than credentials" b. points out 'why so diminutive?' and call for language change
    2. ~27 min learner control, portability, verification a. what about ratings, institutional reputation, and salary/roi impact?

  13. measures of alternativeness? (abnormality or inverse normality)

    1. term obscurity: google ad keyword plan tool (impressions, clicks, etc) or interest on google trends https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/5NfIpQo3tII
    2. ordinary survey
    3. enrollment
    4. state backing (accredition, loan programs)

  14. future research could measure the size of the flexibility remote stigma over time and estimate when it will become negligible; this would be a general measure of market competitiveness bc flexible work is associated with higher productivity, so pure market theory expects rapid convergence but we seem to observe slow convergence; how can we improve convergence speed? https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/a-revolutionary-change-making-the-workplace-more-flexible/

  15. https://github.com/dougiebuckets/github-email-scraper

6. Key Terms for Search

  1. nonaccredited education providers
  2. alternative credentials
  3. mooc
  4. alternative education
  5. competency-based skills
  6. competency-based education
  7. evidence-based education
  8. experiential learning
  9. microcredentials

7. Review of The Case Against Education

1 my credentials (studied under caplan, advance review of the book, interest in economics of education, homeschooled and privately schooled in the past) 2 what i liked (and others, not just me) 3 what i didn't like (with suggestions for improvement) (and others, not just me)

The book presents irrefutable proof of the overinvestment of education in the US as a matter of national policy and in terms average individual expenditure. This is the main aim of the book and it is accomplished in such a manner as to make the claim an uncontroversial fact among economists. With little room in the claim for controversy among economists, it becomes an interdisciplinary focal point. Economists can now credibly posit a generally accepted economist's view on the matter in order to contrast this with interdisciplinary views. Indeed, Caplan has foreseen this discussion and done an unusually effective job at engaging the foreign literatures, something economists of even high calibur rarely do to a degree of rigor which matches the highest levels of quality in the secondary field.

This is not to say the book is flawless. Indeed, the bulk of this review will subsist in pointing out obvious flaws. But I do want to emphasize both the overpowering effectiveness of the book in accomplishing its central mission and also to note the easy reading of the book for both the academic and layperson.

Now, on to the criticisms:

  1. Education is defined as years of traditional education. K-12 + college. The education literature itself considers this a decidedly outdated notion of education. Most education scholars would consider something like a certification program to be a mode of education. Many education scholars readily accept evidence-based education as superior to traditional education. Many education scholars would broadly respect informal education, or learning on the job, or self-teaching by perusing YouTube. The modern notion of education advanced by education scholars is rather liberal and embracing of innovative and alternative modes of education, in stark contrast to the outdated convenience notion used in the book.
  2. Education policy is ineffective. So what? Does it follow that we should cut education spending or refactor the manner of spending? The book readily concedes larger gains for STEM relative to other forms of education. Yet, the book does not engage seriously with specific actionable policy alternatives. The reader is left with a non-actionable bad taste in their mouth for education spending in general.
  3. Neither does the author size up individual-level alternatives. There no discussion of many classic topics in the economics of education such as public vs private K-12 schooling, MOOC and online education vs traditional, charter schools, unschooling, innovative badges, nanodegrees, or gamification, vouchers, and so many others. As one who has surveyed some of the literature, homeschooling is known as a remarkable avenue to academic success with little individual cost. Bryan Caplan has experienced this first hand as he has two sons who have performed remarkably on AP exams despite their young age. These sons were recently readmitted to public school and rapidly withdrawn. Clearly Bryan knows first-hand the advantages of homeschooling vs other modes of precollege education. He has even released a podcast on the issue. Yet, he makes no mention of this important topic in his book.

In the end, Bryan does a great job of proving his thesis and advancing further the already established signaling model, but what actions are available on the basis of his work? I suppose the main policy conclusion is that education spending should be cut, but specific amounts are not discussed and indeed a straightforward cut is not contrasted with all of the many alternatives in how we might spend differently rather than less. Moreover, cuts themselves are ideally strategically implemented rather than poorly suggested as some sort of sector-wide proportional discount. Specific programs to cut and so forth are not engaged. At the individual level Bryan seems not to rock the boat very much, basically telling most people to go for a STEM college degree. To his credit, he deals a blow to the ivy league fiction on the grounds of economic return. Yet, I feel there is room for improvement here. What of all of the education innovations coming around these days? They are not investigated. As a programmer, I want to echo Elon Musk and others who have said that a degree is becoming more and more irrelevant where it can be displaced by cheaper, momre effective evidence-based credentials such as skill-specific certifications. I want to see Caplan take seriously the notion that individuals should be getting to work earlier and learning on the job. I want to see him call for a reduction in the minimal age of working, and I want him to embrace internship as a comparatively effective mode of education.

In another place he says it's neutral value whether existing is good??? in the fertility discussion see lecture 26. Very powerful lecture this is just one reason. But some scientists take reduced female fertility as a gain from education: wtf? economists qua economist should be skeptical of food supply from population boom scares and should be very pro innovation and labor force gains from population; so economist qua economist should be pro population. Then, as a human, Caplan says 'philosophically I think people think existing is good'. more deeply, existence is a necessary precondition for goodness: This is ontological. For good to be good, it must be. Good which is not, is not good. Also as a human, Caplan wrote Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Clearly he has thought about this!! Why not rock your shit Caplan? I want to nudge Caplan to be more loudly Caplan. He is clearly being strategic in an attempt to minimize controversy around his book. This is obviously an intelligent move, and I do not recommend he rewrite this addition. I'm simply hoping for a more risk-loving sequel.

WHERE IS THE GRIT? He talks some about personality traits but I would like more please. This compliments the signaling model: You were already awesome because you have grit. Yet, if school can build patience, can it not build perseverance (grit?)

8. Non-IT Alt Creds

Do they work as well? Theory/intuition: No, because employers also, are soft skills harder to prove? and harder to prove = less effectual alt creds? sales = https://angel.co/alwayshired/jobs https://angel.co/strive-talent/jobs https://angel.co/newsletters/the-future-of-education-052618 Fiver profiles may be scrapable: https://www.fiverr.com/johnvandivier Another thing to do: contact public schools in various states and survey their employees and students about have they heard of alternative education.

9. David Schmidtz

Vouchers have mixed results, interesting sources, can feed abm

More data on charters...what data?

Roland Fryer, caplan, hanushek, key dudes. Fryer and SCHMIDTZ lectures on soundcloud...why not youtube? Anyway

Charters not a big step toward markets, but possibly nontrivial he says...so what's the result?? Credo 2009 study. Charter can be montessori, otherwise nonstandard, or unremarkable. What about online charter schools...gale of creative destruction limited by geography.

Seems in private interest to transfer if classes aRe easier.

2009-2013 charter change endogenous to policy, tech, something else? Are they using same hard and soft ware tools?

Ryan cares about econ of edu, does Scott King?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.edreform.com/2012/03/just-the-faqs-charter-schools/&ved=0ahUKEwi_ydn9mLPaAhVRq1kKHQ51CcMQFgghMAE&usg=AOvVaw12NqYOPpbbNFi8sgX3I_aO

Nationwide, charter schools are paid per student 64% of district counterparts

IQ distribution by geography is roughly equal!!! HiEven poor remote neighborhoods have geniuses by IQ; does this endogenously anticipate a Great Peace when combined with the increasing normalization of remote working and learning? Since income is associated with peace there is reduced incentive for brain drain.

John van...gmu abd...thanks for speaking...2 qs...

Question - does the relation attenuate or grow when adjusted by state or by spending per student? I'm aware charters spend on average 64% of counterparts?

What actionable private lessons can we extract? One is, hey, enroll ur kids in charters. Is there anything else? Are there systematic differences in charter tooling, curricula, or process?

Top-down vs bottom-up measures of success; do standardized scores benefit public schools? What if we use during and post grad earnings, productivity, happiness, and college completion...also SAT vs state-based benchmark.

He doesn't have a causal story but does he gave literature recommendations. Eye contact and personal interaction?. Spiral method??

Isaac morehouse praxis

Behavioral economics full series learn liberty

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-05-more-colleges-are-offering-microcredentials-and-developing-them-the-way-businesses-make-new-products

Question: How many courses must I take to have productivity on par with the average developer?

marketing claims by firms: https://www.linkedin.com/premium '2x quick hire, 6x as many profile views, 3x as likely to exceed sales quota...' but how much of this is causal vs association???

10. Vouchers

Complexity explorer abm. Voucher process...at least 4 parental strategies. Spend more time and effort with kid, punish kid, reward kid in cash or in kind (interesting is the relief of chores or similar and kids don't care about cash the same way), do nothing.

Parental factors matter...what is their utility of income or income level? What is their prior preference for private v public? Their IQ may reflect an ability to obtain an ideal strategy rather than a convenient, prior biased, or random one.

Kid factors: some kids respond to certain strategies. Eg an emotionally starved kid might prefer time w parent.

External effects...if a parent does all of the homework the kid doesn't learn. If a kid is emotionally starved he or she may not really be learning when spending time w parent.

Establishing the process: open ended survey as a way to define strategies: "would you act differently?"

Tax voucher vs school discount. Homeschooling tax break. Home public teaching as a distinct category allowing state standards.

//lib swing on this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lPbkHVxenU

//this video is meh but he might have data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmTu4Az7RrE

11. Epple et al 2017, School Vouchers

Theoretically the Becker family unit; vouchers directly compensate parents but head-of-household can compensate the student child for the gain the child earns the parent; indirect compensation. Leeson assigned a paper on this on nonmarket decision making.

Would giving a student skin in the game help? Eg cash compensation to student effectiveness vs voucher compensation. Or "in-school money" as a new kind of voucher. A student might, for example, buy school lunches or tickets to athletic events, food at those events, and school themed merchandise with in-school money. In-school money could also pay for extracurricular activities and other field days or items which the school might typically request money from the student in order to participate.

In-school money would be a direct utilitarian mechanism to motivate the student. Similar to cash but limited in uses. The use limitation makes it theoretically comparatively less utility-generating compared to pure cash but potentially better than a voucher.

Vouchers can theoretically result in the child being fully compensated, but practice is another question. Parents might not compensate the child even while they could. Given imperfect compensation in any non-zero degree, direct mechanisms are theoretically better than direct mechanisms.

Yet there is another possibility: Parents can get voucher money and compensate the child using a lesser amount of ordinary cash. Yet, since this cash has a wide array of uses it may be a net-positive transaction for both the child and the parent. For example, many children will value $1500 in cash more than $2000 in school voucher money. The child may be motivated by their parent's contingent promise of $1500 rather than by the $2000. If this process is realistically the case, then models should include parental strategy factors. Those parents preferring this strategy will have effective children while other strategies will be less effective. For example, some parents may not compensate the child at all or they may attempt motivation through a threat of punishment for weak performance.

12 more from evernote; mainly on the hiring process

Chapter 4 Heckman availability bias Chapter 4 1/3 signaling 1/3 ability by us 1/3 education. This results is consistent with Ford and the logic and risk minimization because as a no hypothesis we assume each factor has an equal share. This is also kind of showing points for a showing styleA showing. Shelling style distribution. Blog about Shelley important Chapter four to ACS major and ability Bice

Unrelated to book: chicken egg problem with some credentials such as registered nurse, CPA, and other common certified financial planner etc. actually, related to book in case of 'government credentialism', see late chapter 4 (audible position 00:36:44); well, what he talks about is different that what i mean by like 'govt says you need a degree to do X, even in the private sector' eg licensed nursing; or are rns considered public? no i don't think so...when he compares salary he seems to be leaving off benefits like govt retirement and pension, sometimes student loan benefits...govt may also be a norms-maker even if it isn't the highest paying. what about private firms that serve government? private firms that serve government and private market? the last case seems to be profit-maximzing but also shows how govt rules can be norms-making for this type of business's operations

more related he talks about licensing in chapter 4, audible position 00:20:00

PMP, CSM, portfolio, internship or other experience

Policy change: donā€™t require degrees Firm productivity game: so donā€™t require degrees, internal employee cross training and hiring from within and continuous change and Employee learning and training, retain meant and hiring benefits, integrated with evidence-based performance reviews for better hiring and firing and other decision making.

Database of credentials. I know that exists, but what about a database that includes credential reviews or ratings and information about value of the credential and courses with completion success rates and so on.

People learn for productivity or leisure (citation). Alternative and traditional pathways exist for both types. When learning for productivity, the quality of a learning program is demonstrated by the change to productivity explained. Very low quality programs can easily reduce productivity in the real world. Low to medium quality programs will be able to claim no change or a slight increase to productivity, but on closer inspection those programs are not comparatively better than normal employment in a task for a similar amount of time. High quality programs will result in productivity gains more quickly than ordinary work. All of these programs actually exist based on data (examples, citations).

The demonstration of productivity is itself a signal. Ordinary labor generates a signal, and it's a special kind of signal which is non-hollow. Not all signals are equally valuable. Noisy signals have a low correlation with real productivity and clean signals have a strong correlation with real productivity. Ordinary labor is a signal as clean as the process which measures it. Admittedly, measuring labor productivity is much more difficult in the real world than on paper. Some measurements are subjective and may be susceptible to bias. During interviews, candidates may systematically under-perform due to being in a different environment, lacking their usual tools, and being under unusual stress or pressure to perform. Despite the various problems one can envision, work sample tests task-based or competency-based interviews, are the most effective form of interview, even outperforming measuring cognitive ability directly [[1]], [[2]].

When planners use clean signals they reduce risk and improve accuracy compared to when planners use noisy signals, so clean signals are higher in value.

When learning for productivity, one must eventually measure productivity. The measurement of productivity, however, is a type of signal. So learning becomes a special case of signaling. The relation between learning and signaling in an evidence-based learning system is like the relation between a rectangle and a square. All enhancements to productivity are accompanied by signals, but not all signals are accompanied by enhancements to productivity. Every time you actualize learning you are in fact producing, and producing is a special case of signalling. It is a non-hollow signal. Even so, it's useful to recognize the full value of wages as based on signals so as to produce an apples-to-apples comparison.

[[1]]: https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/10/selecting-talent-the-upshot-from-85-years-of-research.html [[2]]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309203898_The_Validity_and_Utility_of_Selection_Methods_in_Personnel_Psychology_Practical_and_Theoretical_Implications_of_100_Years_of_Research_Findings

traditional education -> traditional credential -> traditional signal -> job alternative education -> alternative credential -> alternative signal -> job ** alternative education -> alternative signal -> job

** A related pathway which is of only secondary interest is that sometimes alternative education does not result in a credential.

Why do we care about credentials at all? Signals vs credentials

One reason that employers value credentials is because credentials reduce risk, improve competency estimate accuracy, and save time. From an employer's perspective, credentials economize in the evaluation phase of the hiring process. Credentials also

The end-to-end process of hiring involves the employer establishing a match between a candidate and a job.

It is the case that employers value

*sometimes the alternative credential is institutionally backed and sometimes it is autonomously generated.

The Hiring Process

No step necessarily follows the prior step, but these steps always occur in order prior to a new hire taking place. The employer's perspective operates concurrently with the employee's perspective.

Employer's perspective. 1 - An employer wonders whether an addition of labor can improve profit. [market research phase] 2 - An employer communicates a specific job demand to the market. [candidate search phase] 3 - An employer receives and comparatively evaluates a collection of offers. [evaluation phase] 4 - An employer decides to make a collection of hiring offers. [offer and negotiation] 5 - An employer on-boards each new employee. [on-boarding] 6 - An employer maintains and develops an employee 7 - An employer terminates employment

Hiring begins as a question. An employer wonders whether an addition of labor can improve profit. How an employer comes to wondering such things is an important process which is now briefly considered, but is taken for granted in the higher-level hiring process model which will be utilized throughout this paper.

will now consider briefly, but we will, but one we will take for granted. As a quick aside, internal communications systems within an organization are extremely important to the efficiency of any organization. Ultimately, when an employer wonders, it originates in the mind of one individual as an individual question. The individual question is submitted by an individual to the firm itself according to firm-specific processes, after which it is either resolved or transformed into some other question.

As a meta-process, an employer which wonders important questions is expected to flourish relative to an employer which wonders less important questions. Suggestion generation seems to obtain at the individual level, concordant with individual intelligence, and typed according to the task of the suggesting individual. Feedback and communication systems within organizations are extremely important. Curation mechanisms can quickly prioritize important suggestions for broader firm or leadership consideration, and automatically resolve many questions. Curation mechanisms include organizational structure, culture, knowledge base solutions, learning management, and more.

begins with a question. An employer wonders whether an addition of labor can improve profit. This questioning triggers a search process, which can also be called a market research process. The employer may concurrently consider modifying production processes, hiring labor of various qualities, investing into physical or human capital

  • use of alternative credentials is consistent with evidence-based business processes; evidence-based business process utilization can improve all major categories of business process including human resource management, production,

11/9 updates

Chapter 6 Krueger study which compares students who applied to multiple universities and fines determination and ambition or she usually reward it on the market. This appears to be a non-cognitive skill related to great or big five etc.

Chapter 7 I think, although maybe not, Kaplan refers to the College Board. Check whether my am claimant at the college board can be used to engage additional information.

Chapter 8 late in the chapter deals with online education directly and name drops canā€™t Academy and others. Reference the section heavily. Brian issues the challenge clearly that technophiles in favor of online learning shouldnā€™t expect revolution until they can explain why an off-line and testing revolution has an already taken place. He discount of course the explanation that itā€™s simply legal. He explains that degrees signal more than conscientiousness and intelligence or ability. He even grants the point that online facilities may devise extremely accurateTest of both conscientiousness and called native ability.My intuition is that itā€™s largely a reputation game where employers are on able to trust diverse alternative credentials but they will trust government and in fact there is a regulatory perspective 4Ā° or sometimes required and government can become norms setting. Wow Caplanā€™s TA or that he thinks fit degrees Cygnal something alternative credentials do not signal he is not clear about specifically what it is. He thinks itā€™s he seems to indicate that it is something like normal Ness. At the same time he seems to undervalue something like grit, and he grants conscientiousness to alternative credentials, so itā€™s not obvious to me exactly what he is indicating itā€™s not simply work for compliance. Jk yes heā€™s clear itā€™s conformity, so this should snowball on acceptance over time except for govt anchoring. How to directly test Caplanā€™s TA says online education is growing into directions: one online courses for brick and mortar institutions, to alternative credentials affectively that is independent websites. He ignores three, employer learning management systems. This directly contradicts the thesis that these credentials donā€™t represent a substitution to the church not agree.

Chapter 11, I relate to Julie and the tech journalist. Caplanā€™s TA has education has weathered such storms for centuries, but education as it stands today has not existed for centuries. Notably referring to government subsidies at the Stafford loan, various legal requirements for degrees, and so on. The catch 22 on conformity signaling with alternate eight alternative credentials is not in fact a catch 22, itā€™s a logical issue without an empirical issue. Alternative providers are already sneaking in to the existing universities as one strategy. For example con Academy partnering with SAT prep and college board and also providing material two universities. Degreed the platform is working with universities to execute Craig credentialed and continuous learning in partnership with the grade. Your dad said he course Sarah etc. are working with universities to provide degrees. So while out ride avoiding college has had an issue, alternative learning providers our already in the main stream behind the scenes. Wow university attendance may or may not have dropped 10%, as in Kaplanā€˜s bet, Well over 10% of university students now are all online. That is online learning has ticked up, even while the number of college degrees has not dramatically decreased.

Review of faster and cheaper you by Craig The preamble in chapter 1 or the first part of part one contain plenty of anecdotes and Iā€™m extremely fan on numerical data antics and kind of seem like typical sociology or psychology of education or even non-academic books. So I immediately got a poor taste in my mouth after just immediately coming from reading Bryan D. Caplanā€˜s case against education. However this book does provideA rich qualitative survey of types of education programs, even with questionable numerical ā€“ empirical data. It is also extremely relatable due to the frequent use of personal stories with a significant amount of detail and personal touch in each. Itā€™s also, unfortunately, heavy on normative rhetoric, often including superlatives statements lacking data to support them in an objective faction. However this may appeal to certain readers. Itā€™s certainly targeting a different audience then Bryan D. Caplanā€™s book. So taking together they may reach a wider audience

Returning to my research for moment: cat Flynn Kaplan states that thereā€™s this Catch-22 around credential credibility and thatā€™s why employers will never except alternative credentials. However there are other mechanisms which explain failure to adopt by employers. One is employer bias like 18 evection bias innovation, Another explanation is employer ignorance, a third is Caplanā€™s TA story, and a fourth is in bedded processes including firm processes, industry norms, and public policyā€™s. The last category prevents or slows change even in the case when employers desire the change. The survey monkey survey can shed some light on the degree to which each of theseFactors contributes

Location 370 5722, 7%, Craig opposes Kaplan where Kaplan indicates universities have been robots to change for hundreds of years etc. etc., Craig sides with me in saying that the G.I. Bill was a landmark change. Prior to that according to Craig, college is served the merchant elite and degrees were is much about signaling the status of the father as the child. This is a place where Craig actually has some data: before World War II about 5% of adults had degrees after World War II about 30% or more dead. Craig says employers began using degrees as a quality screening mechanism between the 1970s in the 1990s. So when we use college as a signaling mechanism, itā€™s hardly something that has been around for hundreds of years, itā€™s more like something thatā€™s been around for less than 100 years, for a generation too well for two generations

Craig agrees on signaling and not just the signaling exists but that Cygnal he is the ā€œprimaryā€ explainer of college degree value so as in more than half.

And Caplanā€™s TA Chi Quetion of education does he use for years to obtain a degree or six years or something else. Craig notes only half of US students complete a degree within six years. This obviously affects return on investment.

Location 397, inspect Craigs sources of attainment confidence. Look for trends over time. He notes in one place that first time students think they will get a degree with 89% confidence and in another place on the 55% of students think they will get a degree in 2017.

Craig know itā€™s only 26% of employers thought college graduates had excellent critical thinking skills. What is the difference between critical thinking in detailed thinking? Could it be that high-level programmers such as those produced by Boot Campā€™s obtain critical thinking skills with out liberal education, by virtue of the fact that they are required to take in concrete in detailed terms? Basically could Boot Campā€™s produce critical thinkers at a higher rate or higher quality than liberal education?

Location 414, no student satisfaction and engagement rates. Compared to alternative learning systems like on academy

On YouTube engineered truth has a video call Mike do online classes help you get a job. Thousands of views and over 99.9% voted big concludes that using a portfolio of real projects is ideal and should be mentioned on a resume, but specific courses probably should not be mentioned on a resume. This is common advice and it actually supports the human capital model of alternative education over signaling. It also supports the idea that that a portfolio is both a CygnalAnd a credential. I donā€™t necessarily think the same advice follows for actual alternative credentials such as a specialization, I Nino degree, etc. I think this advice holds for one off classes. Engineered truth video is from three years ago and has /80,000 views

The friendly reviewer has a review of coarse Sarah you density and Alex. Over 125,000 views within and the past couple years and similarly about it over 99% thumbs up. He suggests that for alternative credentials specifically such as the specialization nano degree or micro master, you can place it on your resume if your intent is to freshen up the resume, Or if you donā€™t have appropriate experience because, for example, you are trying to switch careers. He does state that if you have experience that will be more valuable than the small credentials. He also notes that the micro masters from Alex is eligible for university credit. This is an interesting hybrid model which points to another way in which alternative education and traditional education are not exactly antagonistic although they can be substituted from the consumer viewpoint. Also college board let you test out of courses and other stuff like that too.

Nathan Young has videos on a degree in one year where he largely tested out of college Using programs like DSST, clap, CLEP, TECEP.

alternative paths:

educational drake equation: reduce time, reduce tuition, improve completion...anything else? improve financing: does bryan account for financing the student debt at a specific interest rate?

  • some financers will pay for u to go in exchange for a portion of your earnings these drake-games might reduce institutional quality, but institutional quality seems to have a negligible effect on salary after completion

overall impression of Craig so far: meh. he semi-convincingly argues that faster, better, cheaper ed can be done, but I haven't seen 1) any concrete plans, or 2) what 'affordable' means technically. It's like he's expecting u to make that judgement call. (econs would technically compare to ROI of next best thing / max profit)

Location 504 Craigā€™s book, universities are using deflated measures of cost of living.

Location 533 Caplanā€™s TA Shmoney survey, 21% or so of parents do not think the cost of college is justified.

Location 562, average tuition discount from 10% to 50% is a major indicator of competition or at least a market change.

Location 742, 80% of college graduates are obtaining an internship now, from 10% to generation ago

Location 768, ironically I creation standards force accredited degrees to be based on outdated information due to the fact that curriculum needs to be approved by faculty and faculty is generally theoreticians.

Location 904, enrollment is already declining, down 12% in some cases. Compared to Kaplanā€™s wager.

effect of unhappiness on success?

  • we want to tell people 'if you are willing to adopt this plan, do it, but if you aren't willing to adopt this plan fine do your own thing.' Alternatively we could say, 'even if you don't want to change majors, it will still be good for you,' but would that be true? How likely am I to finish a degree I hate? In this case I'm not interested in assessing a career of suffering, but I am looking at whether it's worth it to endure a disliked degree which will ultimately satisfy a desirable job.

decomposing the college bundle:

  • career placement sucks, that's why we have recruiters which are more effective
  • networking off-campus is substitutable or better than networking on-campus (with job interest, professionals v students, career services sucks)
    • meetups, for example. Company HR and recruiters even attend these things. Earning a personal referral has a stronger positive effect on hiring than the negative stigma of an alternative credential; indeed not only is the overall effect larger but it counters the exact stigma itself at the mechanistic level; a referral can assure the hiring manager that a person isn't too weird according to a person who already works there, rather than according to the candidate or the candidate's unknown buddies.
  • alternative signaling
  • alternative learning
  • what's left? college 'puts it all together' for you, but 1) it's more expensive, 2) it's lower quality, 3) it includes stuff you don't need. If you can manage your learning yourself then you can get better for cheaper, and really, isn't the ability to self-manage learning the real 'learning how to learn'? Self-directed education, an alternative pathway, teaches you to learn how to learn, not traditional education.
  • this decomposing looks just like Christiansen's model of disruptive innovation (what is a respectable timeline? has it already been happening? yep.)

TODO: Net promoter score for alternative credential utilization. "Would you recommend this to a friend?" [alternative education]

Craig's book, location 964-1038; experts estimate 80% of employers use an applicant tracking system (ATS). These systems filter based on resume format and keywords. Keywords are often technical skills because general skills are not good discriminators. So a liberal education really doesn't help here, but technical learning does help. Also, consulting with experts in hiring for that specific profession will help; recruiters know how to format resumes and what words to use. They also know what words or phrases can be stretched for a job and what is considered dishonest. They can often recommend training resources and sometimes assist with tests to certify specific knowledge.

_** guaranteed jobs https://www.ere.net/pay-2500-follow-the-program-and-get-a-100k-job-guaranteed/ https://www.springboard.com/workshops/data-science-career-track https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/16/udacity-ends-pledge-students-get-hired-or-get-their-money-back _ Craig pointed to a 2017 report from VentureBeat, which stated that of around 10,000 students who had earned nanodegrees since 2014, around 1,000 had found jobs as a result. ā€œA placement rate of around 10 percent should spell the demise of any last-mile training program,ā€ said Craig. https://www.bloc.io/faq * "We have a 97% success rate for job-seeking students in 2016." also general assembly, gridiron, competitors; i can also attest to codecademy, pluralsight, code school, + github portfolio + slay interview.

my research is completely in line with Jordan Friedman * https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-01-22/what-employers-think-of-badges-nanodegrees-from-online-programs

*** join military

  • cheap school
  • side benefits like housing; you basically won't be functionally poor
  • higher than min wage income
  • gain skills, maybe you won't even need college after the fact
  • easier degree bc college credit waiver
  • does GI Bill explain much of credential inflation?
  • does going military actually make you a better student?

this stuff maybe related

"ā€œI donā€™t think it will replace the degree,ā€ he said. ā€œI think it will be a healthy thing for the degree.ā€" https://gigaom.com/2013/09/17/will-khan-academy-someday-offer-students-a-college-degree/

  • micromaster's doesn't cut it bc u need bach before master's; we want an entry-level solution
  • udemy doesn't cut it with 1-off courses; we want a substantial credential with reputation

Concrete Substitutions: 30 Most Common Degrees

refer to Table 2 and/or whatever is available at main suppliers https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/04/FULL-STUDY-PDF-Gender-Pay-Gap2FCollege-Major.pdf

I ignore managerial positions bc I don't see them as entry level. I also ignore intern positions bc those are pre-entry level and don't require degree.

  • business
  • computer science and engineering
    • Target role: Software Developer (70k)
    • Udacity Nanodegree
    • UoPeople https://www.uopeople.edu/
    • Coursera Specializations
    • General Assembly, Flatiron, and many other bootcamps
  • psychology
  • electrical engineering
    • Per glassdoor, they end up becoming software engineers. See all the resources available there.
  • mechanical engineering
    • TODO: maybe the exception to the rule
  • communications
    • social media / tech writer / marketing
  • marketing
    • Udacity Nanodegree
  • information technology
    • Per glassdoor, they end up becoming software engineers. See all the resources available there.
    • Capella FlexPath
  • economics
    • TODO: financial/data analyst
  • finance
    • TODO: financial/data analyst
  • accounting
    • "Most states require that you have a bachelorā€™s degree in accounting in order to sit for the exam, but not all of them"
    • alt path: move states!
    • otherwise, basically another case of non-innovatable-by-license
  • biology
    • TODO: pharmacy tech
  • english
    • social media / tech writer / marketing
  • political science
    • tough transition...law clerk technically doesn't need a law degree but it's like always a step towards a real legal career which does require that, bar, etc...
    • alt path: you can become a lawyer without going to law school! https://priceonomics.com/how-to-be-a-lawyer-without-going-to-law-school/
    • alternatively, political science degrees can be used much like business/marketing/communication degree
  • criminal justice
    • Capella FlexPath
  • sociology
    • TODO: they go into sales
  • mathematics
    • TODO: financial/data analyst
  • history
    • TODO: they go into sales
  • nursing
    • Capella FlexPath
  • civil engineering
  • chemical engineering
  • chemistry
  • human resources
    • Capella FlexPath
  • journalism
    • Social media / tech writer
  • public relations
    • TODO: PR / social media
  • international relations
  • education
  • management information systems
  • graphic design
    • Udacity Nanodegree
  • industrial engineering

experiments TODO: 1 - use degreed skill certification to compare udacity vs coursera vs normal school (vs capella?) vs pluralsight skillIq vs ordinary IQ 2 - have kids attempt any of my alt paths out of highschool and record results

How to Remove a File from Git History?

This technique was used for IRB compliance and data destruction. Details here: https://blog.tinned-software.net/remove-files-from-git-history/

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i meant for it to be for my dissertation, but it grew into all my papers šŸ˜¬

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