That doesn’t match reality at all. China had a massive program to send students for college education in the US. US college grads have very obviously wider knowledge and skill bases than their Chinese peers (probably because they were studying instead of drinking). Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely firms that don’t pay a premium for “returners”, but they very much fall behind.
I’m sure that if keeping the same person around at the company doing the same job but with a bit more mentoring was more efficient than asking them to take a few years off to get a Master’s/PhD, more companies around here would do so.
China had a massive program to send students for college education in the US.
Governments make mostly incorrect decisions, both for reasons of misalignment and incompetence. They’re not hedge funds. Xi and Biden don’t get paid more if they hit good Gross Domestic Product targets.
I’m sure that if keeping the same person around at the company doing the same job but with a bit more mentoring was more efficient than asking them to take a few years off to get a Master’s/PhD, more companies around here would do so.
I’m unfamiliar with the business practice of letting employees “take a few years off” to get a Master’s/PhD; that might be a Chinese thing. Here employers will pay for employee’s higher education, but that’s generally pitched as part of the compensation package for working there and done for tax reasons, not upskilling. Employees go for higher education because of the signaling value of having more education, not because the knowledge will make them more valuable employees. No one would ever go to anything like a University if the University was unable to award degrees certifying that the person had done so. This is obvious.
There is no signaling reason if it’s your own employee. You already know the guy. You know him far more intimately than any degree.
I understand. My point is that if a person is going to get a Master’s degree anyways, it’s cheaper for the employer to compensate them by paying for their education than by actually paying them extra money, because the government will give them tax breaks for doing so. This is the real reason employers pay for employees’ education (besides a misguided sense of charity), not the other thing.
And people audit college courses all the time for upskilling. I’m considering doing so for grad courses right now.
Yet the vast majority don’t audit courses, even when it’s free. In the United States, you can walk into very respectable universities like UC Berkeley and sit in on any class you like. Even people who live next to the campus almost never do. Anomalous if you believe most of the value of education comes from imparting skills, obvious if you believe most of the value of UC Berkeley education is transacted via the degree that says “UC Berkeley grad” and not the information students study while attending.
That doesn’t match reality at all. China had a massive program to send students for college education in the US. US college grads have very obviously wider knowledge and skill bases than their Chinese peers (probably because they were studying instead of drinking). Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely firms that don’t pay a premium for “returners”, but they very much fall behind.
I’m sure that if keeping the same person around at the company doing the same job but with a bit more mentoring was more efficient than asking them to take a few years off to get a Master’s/PhD, more companies around here would do so.
Governments make mostly incorrect decisions, both for reasons of misalignment and incompetence. They’re not hedge funds. Xi and Biden don’t get paid more if they hit good Gross Domestic Product targets.
I’m unfamiliar with the business practice of letting employees “take a few years off” to get a Master’s/PhD; that might be a Chinese thing. Here employers will pay for employee’s higher education, but that’s generally pitched as part of the compensation package for working there and done for tax reasons, not upskilling. Employees go for higher education because of the signaling value of having more education, not because the knowledge will make them more valuable employees. No one would ever go to anything like a University if the University was unable to award degrees certifying that the person had done so. This is obvious.
There is no signaling reason if it’s your own employee. You already know the guy. You know him far more intimately than any degree.
And people audit college courses all the time for upskilling. I’m considering doing so for grad courses right now.
I understand. My point is that if a person is going to get a Master’s degree anyways, it’s cheaper for the employer to compensate them by paying for their education than by actually paying them extra money, because the government will give them tax breaks for doing so. This is the real reason employers pay for employees’ education (besides a misguided sense of charity), not the other thing.
Yet the vast majority don’t audit courses, even when it’s free. In the United States, you can walk into very respectable universities like UC Berkeley and sit in on any class you like. Even people who live next to the campus almost never do. Anomalous if you believe most of the value of education comes from imparting skills, obvious if you believe most of the value of UC Berkeley education is transacted via the degree that says “UC Berkeley grad” and not the information students study while attending.