I believe he is referring to postsecondary education specifically. In North America, K-12 exists to make one a functioning member of society. For what flaws it may have, it has overall shown to be beneficial.

With that measured success, we got the idea that once you were a functioning member of society, you could become a functioning member of the workforce simply by continuing in even more years of schooling. But it's not clear if it has really worked out. In 1970, approximately 10% of the US population had a bachelors degree or higher. In 2017, that number is closer to 30%, yet incomes have remained stagnant throughout that entire period and job quality has declined. Not what you'd expect from the promised higher incomes and better jobs that people were willing to spend large amounts of money for.

I was indeed referring to post secondary education.

If I was no troll, I would admit a soft tooth for Finland focus on early education and the amazing results they have doing so.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-sc...

I honestly can't understand how people spout some of this crap.

I've also grown up in a region where education was overlooked, and living with complete fucking morons is not fun. Especially when these morons themselves think that education is worthless, which is a snowball effect meaning many of their children will be stupid, as well.

On the other hand, it's easier to control them if you want to. Like they did in Medieval ages and earlier. Yeah, let's go back to that.

The ROI is as indirect and long term as it gets, but it's real and it's massive.

You have to compare comparables situations : what could have been done different with the same resources involved ?

Having an educational system is a sign that the society is wealthy and can afford it, but doesn't mean it's the best use of resources involved (thus it might have a bad ROI).

You said education was overlooked where you come from, was there an educational system there ?

It's worth distinguishing between basic literacy (including basic math skills) and graduate-level specialty degrees.

For one, if the labor market in a particular specialty becomes oversaturated, does that mean existing grads need to spend years retraining?

He is talking about College/University education, and companies sometimes requiring advanced degrees for basic jobs.

High school is and will always be needed. Also, for some careers university education is obviously necessary. Just not always.

However, this probably only applies to the USA, or other places (South America as well) where students get into high debt to get degrees.

I think it's a matter of value being shaped by under- or oversupply.

Speaking of illiteracy, there's an urban legend (not sure if true, anyone with access to data please check it) that literacy rate has actually dropped in the US throughout the 20th century, coinciding with increase of education "supply".

No data exists for that because the definition of illiteracy depends too strongly on the axe being ground.

Everything from 1% to 66% illiteracy has been attempted to sell to people.

It does seem that illiteracy clusters with various citizenship status, racial and other demographics, simple age distribution of a geographic location, and socioeconomic level to an extent that if you successfully filter those effects out you end up with a boring flat line at 100% literacy when ends up meaning nothing. The largest factor is literacy graphs and maps are basically a restatement of immigration data.