It’s©, Dan, but the fancy footwork isn’t I think deliberate.

“An international comparison shows that graduates in the UK get a high ‘rate of return’ from higher education, in terms of better job prospects and earnings. The rate of 17% puts the UK ‘in a group of its own’ – compared with 10% to 15% in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US and 7% in Italy and Japan, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2371111.stm

“A sharp increase in the number of people getting degrees has not reduced the extra earning power of graduates. The annual education report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows graduates are still maintaining a pay gap. . . In the UK, average graduate earnings are 59% above those of non-graduates. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3652376.stm

“Graduates can expect to earn £150,000 more over their lifetimes than those with just A-levels – £250,000 less than previously estimated – a report says. Economists at Swansea University said some subjects – such as the arts – could even mean losses, when fees and living costs are taken into account.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4599267.stm

“A degree in an arts subject reduces average earnings to below those of someone who leaves school with just A-levels, a study shows. Graduates in these subjects – including history and English – could expect to make between 2% and 10% less than those who quit education at 18, researchers at Warwick University found.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2823717.stm

This is not as true as you think. Through various sources I know of a lot of people from those situations who were less practical.

If you want both broad access to education and the elimination of unnecessary cronyism, I should think the solution is quite simple: For every degree a university gives to its graduates, it must grant an identical degree to a randomly chosen non-student. The signalling value of a degree will be simply wiped out. the cost of education can remain high enough that at least most students will have some commitment to their education, the fetish value of a university education will vanish, and the unearned economic gains that come from simply being able to afford to get a degree in basket-weaving or business administration will be distributed more equitably among the population. while those students who actually get an education will only see economic gain from doing so if they genuinely acquire meaningful, employable skills from it.

Never underestimate the power of randomness as a policy strategy.

Is this really true? Is social mobility in Britain in 2005 really roughly equivalent to social mobility in Britain in 1905? That sounds to me like either ( a) a searing indictment of modern Britain, quite apart from anything it might say about education; ( b) a radical revision of the common understanding of British society ca. 1905; or ( c) a bit of fancy footwork involving the definitions of “social mobility” and “hardly changed at all”. I’m curious to know which.

I’m certainly inclined to conjecture with Chris (and many other here) that, at minimum, expansion of HE is not the most efficient way of improving social mobility.

Without a doubt, “the most efficient way of improving social mobility”—if that, tout court, is your goal—is simply to impose a regime of strict income and wealth redistribution. Advocates of increasing access to education have traditionally had broader goals, though, such as improving the economy’s overall efficiency by providing good metrics of prospective competence, apportioning jobs more fairly even within socioeconomic classes, and providing real opportunities for members of lower classes to improve their lot in life—regardless of how many people actually choose to avail themselves of them.

Of course, there will be some for whom these benefits are meaningless, and for whom all that really matters is the holy grail of “social mobility”. I assume that such people are simply using “social mobility” as a euphemism for strict redistributionism—that is, the demand that class status be redistributed continuously irrespective of any notion of merit or achievement. Why they would ever have thought educational access to be a plausible means to that end, I have no idea.

I believe in cultural enrichment, but for him to go $20,000 in debt for a humanities degree from a midrange-or-lower school strikes me as a bad choice. Even a Harvard English degree wouldn’t necessarily be worth it.

Well, right, and most students in such situations don’t major in English or Philosophy or Art History. They tend to be more hard-nosed about it—they study accounting, or education, or become respiratory therapists, etc.

1) Employee discounts. I’ve worked at bookshops that gave me 30% off what customers paid. If you buy enough books—and university grads might be presumed to be interested in doing so—this can add up.

2) An interesting and educated clientele. Not true in all instances, but definitely in some.

3) An interesting product. If you haven’t tried, trust me: it’s far more fun to sell something you care about than something you don’t.

4) The chance to meet authors at readings. If you’re an aspiring writer yourself, this can tap your hero-worship buttons.

5) Evening hours—often later than at other shops. If you haven’t shaken the college sleep schedule yet, this can help out.

6) Free coffee. The chance to read interesting snippets when you should be shelving. Etc., etc.

The point is, there are lots of reasons well-educated people might want to work around books, even if what they’re doing is selling said books rather than writing, publishing, or teaching them. It seems like kind of a no-brainer to me. And similarly, while I’m not a big fan of inflexible requirements for any job, I see many reasons why bookshops would want to hire people who, well, are well-read and actually care about books. Obviously, this doesn’t mean only college grads: one of the best bookshop employees —and one of the most self-educated people —I’ve ever known is a drop-out friend of mine. But aiming for people with degrees seems a reasonable place to start. I wouldn’t want someone working in an auto parts store who knew nothing about cars, or a toystore clerk who knew nothing about children.

A possible addition to your steps: stop indoctrinating kids with the `necessity’ of university education. I’m not sure what is/was like elsewhere, but certainly when I was going through grade school there was a continuous message that you needed to go to university to get anywhere in life. I don’t recall anyone ever saying `hey, you could make a very good living as a tool and die machinist’. The worst of this is that kids whose real aptitudes lay in trades often never considered them.