The GI Bill
Garrison Keillor notes the anniversary of the GI Bill on the Writer's Almanac:
It was on this day in 1944 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the GI Bill of Rights. It was one of the most important and influential pieces of legislation ever signed by an American president, but the newspapers barely covered the story at the time. They were too busy reporting on the Allied invasion of Europe.
...Before the war, about 10 percent of Americans attended college. After the war, that figure rose to about 50 percent.
...The cost to taxpayers for the GI Bill was about $5.5 billion, but the result was 450,000 engineers, 240,000 accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 22,000 dentists, 17,000 writers and editors, and thousands of other professionals. It helped spur one of the greatest economic booms in American history.
(The Writer's Almanac links to this worshipful remembrance from establishment historians.)
Thomas DiLorenzo wrote an excellent demolition of the myths around the GI Bill some years ago. He points out in particular the politicization of the universities that was started by the GI Bill:
Today, accreditation agencies, private in name only, have tremendous power over colleges and universities, and they are slavish to government’s agenda. Today, these agencies are the major source of political correctness and big-government ideology on college campuses.
I would only add two direct critiques of Keillor's analysis. He seems to implicitly assumes that because the GI Bill produced more professionals of various sorts that it was obviously a great thing. Besides the unconscious self-congratulation that one expects from the intelligentsia ("more of us is clearly what the world needs"), there is the matter of how many college degrees is optimal. Should every man, woman and child have a PhD? If not, what is the right number? How does Keillor know that 450,000 engineers was exactly what society needed at that time? Absent the operation of the free market there is no way to know.
Secondly, the contention that pouring out lots of people with college degrees produces "economic booms" simply can't stand up to the post-WWII experience. States trying to engineer economic growth throughout the developing world have tried this and I don't believe any positive correlation has been found between how many more people are getting college degrees and how well the economy grows. It would not surprise me at all, in fact, if there was a slight inverse correlation since huge jumps of investment in higher education are typically not something that happens through market demand but through things like the "GI Bill" that have been happening in developing countries through many decades of economic misery.
Comments (7)
I wouldn't have minded a bit more of the poster's take on the article.
Seeking to vent my (undoubtedly unwelcome) Misesian views on the matter, I followed the link to the artcle hoping they accepted (intelligent and civil) comments. Fortunately for them, it appears they don't.
I had the government pay for my college education BEFORE I went on active duty (Navy ROTC). We're all the poorer for it (possibly including me).
Published: June 22, 2007 9:36 PM
I'd also point out (and perhaps not a Misesian point of view), that since the government doesn't produce anything, and at best (or worst) only change for a period of time the degree of the peaks, or the make some small change in the frequency, booms always have busts. If the boom is artificially supported, and various corrections aren't made timely, they will collect, creating a bigger bust when it comes. Perhaps the depression/stagflation of the 70's which caused great misery and consternation in this country was a result of the artificial boom Keillor gushes over?
Typical of Statists to trumpet the "good" done by government, and sweep under the rug the consequences (those are always blamed on a non-Statist scapegoat). Greater booms aren't anything to be giddy over when the busts are deeper and longer too.
Published: June 23, 2007 10:12 AM
Typical of socialists like Keillor is that they never consider the long run. As Austrian econ points out, the receivers of newly minted money benefit greatly from it. Yes, the GI's who got the first round of the GI bill benefitted enormously. But non-GI's had to contend with much higher costs, and so the GI bill harmed them.
The price inflation in education has been about twice the rate of income growth for decades due to increased federal spending. When I attended college 30 years ago, a Pell grant paid for all of my tuition at an expensive private college; today a Pell grant will hardly purchase books for one semester. College benefits for GI's seem to have kept pace with price inflation in education, but the rest of the people are much, much poorer for it because incomes have not kept pace with price inflation in education.
Published: June 23, 2007 10:24 AM
Correlation does not prove causation.
That's all you need to say.
Published: June 23, 2007 8:05 PM
Before such things as the G.I. bill people were not expected to have college degrees - now they are.
Once it was possible for a person to start in a humble position and work their way up, or to study part time. Now if a person has not got a college degree he or she finds it very difficult indeed to advance. There are people who still manage to do so, but they are rare.
Now look at what the G.I. bill (and other government subsidies) have done to the price of a university education.
Just as with such things as Medicare and Medicaid in healthcare, the "knock on" effect of government subsidies in higher education has been an explosion of costs.
So the modern United States has (like most of the West) been turned into a place where one needs a college degree (at least where it is very difficult to advance without one), but where getting a college degree has been made wildly expensive.
This is not a good situation. So things like the G.I. bill should not be celebrated.
Published: June 24, 2007 3:19 PM
I contend the GI Bill actually made college more affordable and accessible to ALL Americans. If you evaluate the mean growth of colleges and universities after WWII, you will see all kinds of colleges, universities, and community colleges sprang up everywhere. This provided more opportunity for all Americans to attend college in remote locations.
As great as education sounds, we still only have about 15% of our population with college degrees. The number of people attending college after high school may be greatly increased sinced 1945, but the retention rate is awful.
The impact of the GI Bill goes far beyond education. In 1939 2/3rds of our country were renters - by 1949 2/3rds of our country were homeowners - These were not ALL servicemembers.
Garrison's facts are right on, but the impact on our country from this accidental
Published: June 24, 2007 5:31 PM
Randy: "I contend the GI Bill actually made college more affordable and accessible to ALL Americans."
How can you say that when the price of a college education has increased at more than twice the rate of wage increases for about 30 years? At the same time, a flood of new graduates has reduced the value of a college diploma, just as flooding the market with paper money makes the money worth less. In the 1950's and 1960's, elementary school teachers didn't even need a college degree. Today, they have to have a masters degree in many places. Real estate agents need college degree in many places. Before WWII, lawyers need only pass the bar exam; schooling didn't matter and a lot of lawyers didn't go to school. They were self-educated through reading. Now they have to go four years beyond a bachelors degree for the privilege of taking the bar exam. And I would argue that the quality of legaly thought has declined dramatically.
Published: June 24, 2007 7:37 PM