This is the second time in about 30 minutes that I’ve come across a reference to something as a “signaling” device (apparently an economics term that I should read up on).
An excerpt which made me laugh out loud:
“You can go to college to get civilized (in the sense that your thoughts about your triumphs and losses at the age of 55 will be colored and deepened by an encounter with Horace or Yeats at the age of 19). Or you can go there to get qualified (in the sense that Salomon Brothers will snap you up, once it sees your B.A. in economics from M.I.T.). Most often, parents must think they are paying for the latter product. Great though Yeats may be, 40-some-odd thousand seems a steep price to pay for his acquaintance. The timeless questions that college provokes — like “What the hell are you going to do with a degree in English?” — must get shouted across dinner tables with increasing vehemence as college costs rise inexorably.”
Full article here.
This article has the feel of my favorite kind of journalistic writing- with the last paragraph and sentence really tying everything together.
