Salient reading for students, parents, and educators on navigating toward a coveted college degree.
A workforce and education expert weighs the perks and pitfalls of higher education.
Cappelli (Management/Wharton School; Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It, 2012, etc.) astutely examines the enduring relevance of a college degree despite problematic funding and postgraduate employment issues. In dense chapters full of illuminating statistical and survey data, the author reports on the affordability and effectiveness of a college degree, directing his assessment to benefit future students and their families. As he notes, astronomical tuitions figure greatly into the equation, as American college costs run about four times higher than in other countries, making the decision to attend a postsecondary school an increasingly risky one. Cappelli also examines the variation in degreed students who fail to achieve success in the postgraduate employment marketplace and those who become overwhelmed by the financial burden. The factors affecting these trends are in constant flux, writes the author, and vary from the labor market requiring functional job skills to the student dropout rate and the education-to-career paths that have evolved as rapidly as their corresponding business models and sophisticated hiring processes. Cappelli’s eye-opening report card on the current state of American education gives mounting tuitions a failing grade, though enrollment and retention numbers are promising. The author’s drilled-down conclusions suggest that students are matriculating at the same level today as they did years ago, but the expense alone has thrown many families into the depths of student loan debt or default. Whether or not investing in college is worth the risk is a major decision about which families and children need to educate themselves. “College is still accepted as necessary for advancement but also increasingly expensive,” writes the author, “and increasingly risky in terms of the likely career payoffs.”
Salient reading for students, parents, and educators on navigating toward a coveted college degree.Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61039-526-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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