There are two main potential downsides to education from an economic point of view. One will always exist while the other applies to some people but not to others.
In economic terms, education is an investment for an individual. When we invest, we forego something good in the short term in hopes of getting something better in the long term. For example, if I invest part of my paycheck, I do not get to spend...
There are two main potential downsides to education from an economic point of view. One will always exist while the other applies to some people but not to others.
In economic terms, education is an investment for an individual. When we invest, we forego something good in the short term in hopes of getting something better in the long term. For example, if I invest part of my paycheck, I do not get to spend that money on anything that would be fun in the short term. I give up that potential fun in hopes of getting more money in the future.
Education is similar. When we go to college, or even to our later years of high school, we are giving something up. We are giving up the chance to be working and making money. Instead of making money, we may actually be spending money for tuition and books. In this sense, education is bad for us in the short term. Instead of making money by working, we are giving up money to pay for our education. This is a downside (at least in the short term) to education.
When we invest, we hope to get a return that makes it worth it to have given something up in order to invest. Sometimes, however, investments go bad. We invest, for example, in bad stocks and we do not get much of a return on our investment. We have given up the chance to use our money in the short term and we have not even gotten a long-term benefit. This can happen with education as well, but it does not always happen.
For some people, money spent on education will be wasted. Even with their education, they will not be able to get a good job that will pay them well. These people would have been better off just going to work right out of high school. For them, the investment in education did not pay off. For these people, there is a long-term downside to education because it costs them without doing them much good in the long term.
Education is an investment. Investments always involve giving things up in the short term in hopes of a high return in the long term. However, there will be people for whom education is a bad investment because they will not get a high return. The short-term loss (for all people who get educated) and the long-term loss (for some) are the two main potential downsides to education.
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