"Can too many brainy people be a dangerous thing?" Overproduction of graduate degrees may lead to political instability

 Peter Turchin wrote an essay for Nature magazine, in which he predicted growing instability for the United States and Europe. 

Why? Turchin thinks western society has produced too many graduates with advanced degrees. This "overproduction of elites" has created a large class of unhappy people--many of whom are drifting into radical politics.

According to Turchin's thesis (summarized in The Economist), the various would-be elites struggle against each other for wealth and prestige. The conflict becomes particularly intense during a time of growing inequality. 

"The rewards for being at the top are then especially lucrative, both in terms of earning power and political influence, and those who miss out feel the loss more keenly."

Without question, American universities have produced too many people with advanced degrees--degrees that often do not bring enhanced status or wealth. The schools have turned out too many lawyers, too many MBA graduates, too many people with advanced soft-skill degrees in ethnic studies, gender studies, and diversity.

Most people who get these advanced degrees take out student loans to finance their studies--often loans in six figures. As the Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago, a high percentage of people with master's degrees from such elite institutions as Harvard and Columbia don't find jobs that pay enough for them to service their student loan debt.

As our universities create more and more would-be elites, their graduates become angrier and angrier. "Articulate, educated people rebel, producing a scramble for political and economic power."

I think Professor Turchin has analyzed our present malaise quite perceptively. Millions of Americans are living in a condition of barely contained rage.

But, in my view, these would-be elites have not yet focused their anger in the right direction. All those millions of people who took out massive student loans in the hope of improving their social and economic status should be angry at the universities that fleeced them and the politicians that refuse to reform the federal student loan program.

Unfortunately, our colleges have not given their graduates the problem-solving and analytical skills they need to figure out who screwed them over. Nevertheless, I think the rubes will eventually figure it out; when they do, there will be hell to pay.

Yucking it up at Harvard: Such fun to fleece the rubes!

This Recession is different: Unemployed Americans should be wary about going to graduate school

Traditionally, graduate school has been an excellent place to hang out for people who are unemployed or clueless about their life's vocation.

 In the old days, tuition was cheap, and a grad student had a good chance of picking up an instructor's job or a research assistant position to help pay the bills. The cost of living was low in a lot of college towns, and there were plenty of bars, live music, and sexually active young people.

Not a bad life! And you could tell your parents that you were in graduate school instead of admitting that you were out of work.

It's not surprising then that in the recession of 2008-2009, a great many unemployed Americans flocked to graduate school.  Graduate school seemed like the right place to park until the economy rebounded. And a master's degree, students told themselves, would help them get back in the job market.

To meet the growing demand, the universities ramped up their graduate programs. Like a medicine-show huckster at the county fair, the colleges rolled out all sorts of new master's degree programs in such fields as sports management, emergency management, hospital administration, criminal justice, and law enforcement.

And of course, the big lure for a lot of young people struggling in a faltering economy was the MBA degree.  All the elite universities have had MBA programs for years: Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., etc.  But, a few years ago, the regional public universities and second-rank private colleges got in on the act. Some rolled out online MBA programs or so-called "executive" MBAs that offered classes on weekends.

Unfortunately, many of the people who got graduate degrees over the past decade saw little or no economic benefit. So many people obtained them for a time that employers saw them as nothing special. As The Economist observed in an article published almost four years ago, "Simply put, MBAs are no longer rare, and as such are no longer a guarantee for employment."

But the most significant danger of going to graduate school is cost. Under the Grad Plus program, students can take out federal student loans for the entire cost of their degrees, including living expenses, no matter how much tuition that a college or university charges.

The University of Texas, for example, now pegs the cost of getting an MBA degree at its Austin campus at $100,000 for its two-year program. Graduates who borrow the entire sum will enter the job market with $100,000 in debt.

So if the current Recession throws you out of work, don't go to graduate school without giving it a great deal of thought. A master's degree might improve your chances of getting a good job, but it might leave you with no prospect of a job and a mountain of student-loan debt--debt that is virtually nondischargeable in bankruptcy.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and sign up for our prestigious executive MBA program.