This is the kind of article that will make college presidents, living in their fancy, university-provided mansions, spit their Cheerios out at breakfast when they read it. It also should give pause to every parent and every student racking-up debt to get that college degree, as some distinguished professors are questioning the very notions that underly much of college education today.
The article in question is an interview with the authors of the new book, The Global Auction. The book was authored by Phillip Brown, distinguished research professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University; Hugh Lauder, professor of education and political economy at the University of Bath; and David Ashton, honorary professor at the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences and emeritus professor at the University of Leicester. In this book, they propose that the world today is basically a huge "reverse auction" for talent - driving labor prices down - and in the process, calling into question the relationship between investing in one's higher education for a return down the road in salary and prestige.
How about this for an opening to the Q and A session:
Q: What are your main critiques of the traditional idea that "learning equals earning"?
A: Most of those in higher education today have grown up with the idea that we live in a knowledge economy requiring an unprecedented demand for college graduates. Globalization, we were told, added to this demand as Americans were needed to do the world’s thinking as workers in emerging economies were limited to low-skill, low-wage jobs in manufacturing or service work, such as in call centers. This "irrational exuberance," to use Alan Greenspan’s term, not only applied to Wall Street but to the rhetoric of "learning equals earning" as Americans and Europeans alike were led to believe that going to college was akin to writing a check with a lifetime guarantee of a well-paid job.
We wanted to put such ideas to the test so we set about talking to business leaders and policy-makers in China, India and Korea as well as those in America, Britain and Germany. What we discovered took us by surprise because of the pace of change in the emerging economies, alongside other changes outlined in the book including the rise of what we call Digital Taylorism (the translation of knowledge work into working knowledge). We were witnessing the creation of a global auction for high-skill, low-wage work that poses a major challenge to the middle classes in America.
Our investigations therefore led us to a different conclusion to Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat. He anticipated a race to the top while we view the global auction as divided among those defined as top talent who continue to be given "permission to think" for a living and well-remunerated for their efforts. These are often those who find their way into America’s leading universities because this is where leading employers tend to hire, whereas many others with a college education find themselves in a reverse auction where there are pressures on wages, pensions, health plans, etc. For these college graduates learning does not live up to earning expectations.
We are all just living in a reverse auction! Wow - and a wow also to the fact that they can use the term "reverse auction" in this context - and that it can be readily understandable by readers - showing just how far we have come in making reverse auctions a part of our business vocabulary.
Read their complete interview at the link below:
News: 'The Global Auction' - Inside Higher Ed
Image by Fräulein Schiller via Flickr
