Proponents of this view might point to things like charter schools doing better than traditional schools, that people in Harlem can beat people in Scarsdale. They might also point to the fact that people who are initially poor/low class and can enter elite institutions tend to do better in those institutions than they would in lower ranked institutions (Josh Angrist’s Nobel Prize lecture is what I’m thinking about).
Taking a look at the broader story of education, it seems if anything, access to further education might actually increase inequality. Consider countries like Nigeria with barely functioning (one might say dysfunctional) institutions. These countries struggle to create human capital in all forms, and nearly everyone is poor. Being super smart doesn’t create that many advantages since it’s harder to capitalize upon intelligence than in an area where intelligence is valued more highly.
Two critical responses might be 1. unfair comparison; compare similar as opposed to dissimilar countries. 2. Inequality is being misunderstood, instead think of it between groups. Places with functional higher education institutions have less inequality between groups/countries. Neither of these are especially compelling.
Most countries in Europe have a heavily tracked system where people who are going to be plumbers (I’m oversimplifying) know from a much younger age. These societies also are less unequal because of a variety of things: marginal tax rates, other methods to obtain status, lesser dynamism. I didn’t use Europe as an example originally since what education is becomes a value judgement very quickly. Is increased vocational school able to be viewed in a similar light to college or preprofessional school? I’m not sure. This is why I think it’s important to move to theoretical mechanism.
What I imagine the theoretical mechanism of someone in support of ‘education is the great equalizer’ is probably sounds like: ‘people have different opportunities at home. Education is effectively a melting pot aimed at re-culturing people towards a shared scholastic vision. If people receive the same education, they’ll likely be able to use it similarly well.
This theoretical justification relies on the assumptions about similar levels of aptitude when it comes to learning, assumptions that are incorrect. Assume aptitude is normally distributed. If the standard deviation is high, or the mean is low, or some combination of the above, it might be the case that providing education increases inequality because the people who take advantage of it are strongly able to take advantage of it, while other people’s learning is effectively a wash. Because there’s an element of genetics that play a role in intelligence, people from families with pre-existing success are likely to be those who are most able to capitalize.
If you go far back, education was incredibly specialized. Royalty had superb, non-stop, individualized education, whereas most other people had diddly-squat. People make an analytical mistake when they assume that everyone would be able to receive that type of excellent education. As it is costly to educate yourself, those most able to afford further education (and sorry socialists who I know are going to claim that making college free solves this problem, time is also a cost) are those who are already the most successful.
This brings us to an interesting issue. We’re often operating under the assumption that education theoretically increases equality and efficiency, but what if it only increases efficiency, or neither?
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