Opinion | Education and Money | Observatory - Institute for the Future of Education

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To talk about the importance of money in education is to enter a whole world. The same happens when we speak about the opposite, that is, how education influences our individual or social way of earning or spending money: another world. Two worlds converging or, according to some, a single world in motion: what you do, or don’t do (as a person or as a country) in terms of education, will be reflected in your economy, and vice versa.

Almost all people, when we talk about “our economy”, do so thinking about having more (there are few who do not care if they lack a dollar). For this reason, education is seen as an investment, an investment that will one day pay off.

But what is an investment? We must be clear about it because, as I said, the way we understand and apply it is determining, to a large extent, our way of educating.

The subject is so complex – so full of technical, emotional, and even spiritual nuances – that to deal with it in a more or less brief article, such as this one, would require the synthesis gifts of a master haikuist (those Japanese poets who, in seventeen syllables, can summarize an entire life experience). So, here, I will limit myself to trying a partial explication, in the hope that it will be clear and not very tedious (or, at its worst, confusing but funny).

Here goes:

When I was a child, in the second half of the last century, the word “investment” implied something safe. This perspective, partly wrong (because there is no safe investment), prevailed in the climate of the time: Investing brought benefits—at least you were confident that your money would produce a return. Today, in the same social environment in which I was born, things are no longer like that. We all know that our investments carry risk, sometimes large.

Investing is increasingly a gamble, a challenge, and a risk, to the extent that many compare the financial system to a casino. Perhaps that comparison is invalid, but Keynes (the most famous economist of the last century) was one of those who encouraged such a comparison: “When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.”

The fact is that the type of investment prevalent today is characterized by challenge and risk, leaning more towards vertigo and danger. I say this not only because, as I learned, in the stock market, between 80 and 90% of investors lose money (the figure could be very similar in casinos) because, with some frequency, the entire system collapses (even worldwide, as in 2008). No one tells us that this cannot happen again at any time.

This atmosphere of defiance and danger permeates everywhere, especially in advertising ( always): “Tell me where you invest and I’ll tell you who you are,” proclaims a (for me) horrendous, spectacular advertisement that I come across almost daily. It is no news to anyone that human beings have become speculative animals.

The world of education is no exception. Looking back to my childhood, I recall that it was often said that sending our daughters and sons to school was not an expense but an investment (even for those attending public schools, who had to pay for uniforms and supplies). Its meaning was the same as I described this word, namely, something guaranteed. Going to school, no matter what, would be profitable. Today, the phrase has, it is obvious, the current acceptance: that paying for school implies a risk, sometimes high, that we all know is worth taking.

The fact that things have changed is due not only to the changes in economic practice, but also to the importance that economists (always controversially) have assigned to education as a factor in a country’s development. You see, the certainty I described in the climate of my time, in terms of education, stemmed from what the experts had concluded a few decades ago, after the Second World War, that education was an intrinsic value of production. Thus, at that time, as the authors of an interesting article on educational economics explain to us, “Investing in Human Capital becomes a primary objective of the governments of all countries. Economic growth and social well-being are explained by the level of education and preparation of citizens.” The article continues, “Machines need the knowledge that the worker inputs. The degree of development achieved by each country begins to be interpreted in terms of the qualification of its human factor. It is the Golden Age of education.”

At that time, questioning whether young people should study or not was a sacrilege. Entirely out of place, my third-year high school English teacher (an American already very “Mexicanized,” and a great guy, too) exhorted us to think, being the bunch of kids we were, if we really wanted to enter prep school, considering that this was, as its name indicates, a phase of career preparation; perhaps some of us would not choose this option. (My school was for “good boys,” and it could be presumed that some would work in the family business without requiring further university training.) I marveled at this advice, but I am sure that most of my companions heard it as something more than obscene: an idiocy, a foolish incitement to rebellion, which could only come from a mad Communist, like that teacher.

But soon after, times of deep economic crisis came that put an end to all the theories that idolized education (theories that were supposed to be well-founded). Economic growth slowed. Suddenly, there was a lack of jobs and too many educated people. Many of them had to accept positions for which they were overqualified, and in which, additionally, they displaced downward those who occupied them.

Economic/educational theory rectified with the perspective that education was no longer a decisive factor for production. People with fewer resources had to hear about something better: “training.” Moreover, technical schools had to be developed that would divert their aspirations for training in something truly productive. Faced with these new ideas, those young people had to turn to careers that promised less, but had the “enormous advantage” of not demanding so much time or effort. This, of course, aligned with the state of personal and family depression they were experiencing (sorry for my irony).

The atmosphere became one of bewilderment and, at best, resignation, despite the advertising campaigns that did everything possible to paint technical schools as a panacea for those young people. (I remember the rise of optimistic jingles in government announcements.)

Families with a little more resources were also disillusioned, although in a more veiled way, allowing us to gradually move from a spirit of personal growth to one of self-improvement (less optimistic and more demanding), and from there to what became definitive for many years in most schools: the spirit of competition. We still complain about schools like this. The whole of society became a frenzied race, a heartbreaking competition. You had to be “the best.” Why? Not because the world needed qualified people, but because, for employers, academic credentials were used to select the most suitable candidates for their vacant positions. The noble spirit of social and human growth was strategically relocated to the recruitment office. Advertising (always complicit, I insist) put the word “excellence” in ascendance, as if it were a personal goal when, in reality, it was just a badge to make it easier for employers to identify candidates.

Things continued with this coming and going between economic reality, educational theories, and the social atmosphere that, sensibly or veiledly, permeated everything.

Honestly, I would love to continue fantasizing about these lurid details, but I must rush to the present time.

Let us describe in a little more detail some aspects of today’s prevailing economic model (which I have described as “challenge and risk”), whose influence is already apparent in our educational system.

A prominent science communicator, Ian Stewart, sums up today’s gamble: “Sell smoke and make money.” He explains it this way: Despite the tragic global experiences of past decades (the 2008 crisis almost ruined the world economy), “Investors are once again being encouraged to make increasingly complex and risky bets to use money they don’t have to buy things they don’t want and can’t use.” These bets are, as Stewart says, “increasingly complex” because they no longer consist of investing in real commodities but of gambling on the bets made by others: something like standing in front of the roulette wheel and saying, “I bet a thousand pesos that, on the next spin, that player will bet all-in on red”.

Operations are moving increasingly out of our hands. Regarding education, parents always felt in control of the game. They bet on the futures of their daughters and sons, encouraging them to study reliable careers (I insist, those of the mainstream). Now – under the model of betting on bets (“selling smoke and making money”) – the floor recedes under their feet. They are starting to grasp that they can no longer provide a concrete expectation for young people (such that they should prepare for a specific labor market), but, instead, must explain what is current: to follow the model of speculation, where what is learned no longer matters, but to enter into speculation. (Digital access to betting apps, which have become a boom among young people, seems to me only a symptom of all this.) Now, the classes, subjects, and even careers are like various table games, and one can choose any one, it does not matter which. Perhaps you have some vague preference, but deep down, this is irrelevant, precisely as in the stock market, where it does not matter if you invest in goods or services, in humanitarian aid or in armaments; where, in fact, it doesn’t even matter if those things you bet on exist.

The particularities (this or that quality, this or that decision) are unimportant. For example, grades are no longer viewed as they used to be, as the game tokens that allowed you to stay in. Today, they are just another document, of partial importance, the same as the career you choose or the institution where you study.

And the truth is that, by way of speculation, the school itself is at risk. Not only the subjects, the careers, the evaluations, but the entire school system. For the moment, our economic/educational model, still supported by parents, continues to demand that young people go through a phase of “studies,” resisting abandoning the past that they still believe guarantees a future. However, the truth is that the young people are already thinking about something else. School is becoming a requirement that must be accepted, akin to the age of majority for entering the investment world.

Undoubtedly, the worst is that in the most impoverished social sectors, young people already take it for granted that, in the end, they will have no luck. They will not be able to win. Therefore, the only thing left for them is to enjoy the playing time to the fullest, which usually means risking everything. Thus, defeat will not take them by surprise, as it did past generations, but will be something sought: their last option, in many ways.

To me, these defeated young people are our weakest link, and their failure is nothing more than the announcement that the entire society will experience the player’s sad fate.

Faced with this bleak vision, it is anticlimactic to finish now with a hope. It seems that we have reached a point of no return, where collapse is necessary for something different to emerge. I, however, recklessly, will try to outline a solution. Fortunately, as so many other times in previous texts, just at the moment of proposing options, I run out of space and have to conclude my article. I likely do this on purpose so that my conclusions are not ostentatious and I can go off on a tangent (going on a tangent is always good advice to the writer, because, by preserving a point of contact with reality, it allows us to move away from it to infinity).

I will, therefore, state my solution in summary form. I begin by noting that, given the severity of the crisis, we cannot meet all needs at once, so it is necessary to establish priorities. Therefore, the points below follow naturally from what I have been discussing.

Prioritize people (to regain strength and confidence). Following the critics, let’s stop forcing the whole of society to rescue financial economies from their failures. If this ever seemed necessary, enough is enough. The population is devastated, and it is time to turn attention to them and apply first.
Prioritize what is real (dissipating the mirages). Once the poorest population has regained some breathing room, we must base economic development on the production of tangible goods and occupy ourselves less with “casino activities” (to quote Keynes again).
Prioritize the ecosystem (returning home). The preference for the real, pointed out in the previous point, implies returning to nature, relearning to inhabit it.
Prioritize young people (ponder the unusual). To direct attention to our youth is to open the possibility that something new, unexpected, will happen, and that the real solution will come with it. Changes often accompany disruption, so in times of crisis, divergences are privileged. It is crucial, then, not to neglect the normal, the “typical,” in this case, those young people who, because they are close to the standard, are increasingly deprived of true humanism.
Prioritize older adults (leverage what is ours). To the “paternalistic” face, if you will, of embracing the miracle of young people is added the “filialist” face of embracing the voice of experience. The time has come to reap its rewards. Ignoring older adults is wasting a long investment just at the moment of maturity.
Prioritize women (seeking unity and coherence). To put the feminine at the center is to recognize the importance, always vital, of its centripetal and cohesive force, different from the centuries-old patriarchal, centrifugal, expansive, and colonizing energy.
Prioritize education (attract everyone to work). It is not the time for everyone to discover for themselves. Education recognizes that a person develops best in flourishing environments. The years of study must be chains of community building. Those who still enjoy some privilege – including young students from the most benefited sectors – must understand that this condition is nothing more than a responsibility that has been placed in their hands to be administered. The school must foster personal goodwill to promote collective well-being.

All of the above, by itself, ultimately means prioritizing health. Health is the most integral part of the individual. It arises and is strengthened by harmony and confidence in oneself and the environment. Whoever lives in pursuit of an elusive ideal is very likely never to achieve true health.

In short, I hope I have made it clear how, for me, catastrophe hides hope. Maybe this has always been the case. Byung-Chul Han, the Korean philosopher, speaking of hope, says that, unlike optimism, it is rooted in darkness; it does not renounce the shadow, but grows within it like a seed in the ground.

We are not only dying; we are being reborn. Both things. And both deserve our greatest effort and respect. Let us stand before this mystery.

Translation by Daniel Wetta