"Go to college to get a good job or you will be stuck _________ until you are a senior citizen," said every parent/adult figure.
Ever since I was told little I was told to get a college education because with that I can get a job. At young age, I just accepted what my parents told me and did not question it. Now that I am older, I see the reason to attend college and the value of getting a degree. A college degree shows others that a person has an ability not everyone can do. Signaling is taking costly actions to convince you of the quality of my ability, product, or service might help to restore faith. Just going to college is a risk being done because not everyone can or wants to take that huge leap with the risk of failure.
"Signaling models were pioneered in Spence (1974). A paper looked at education as a signal, even if education adds nothing to a person’s ability, it might be able to signal a worker’s innate ability. Why? If it is much costlier for a low-ability person to get, say, a college degree (perhaps because they find it more difficult), then low-ability people would prefer not to imitate the high-ability even if it would get them a higher wage One issue with signals, though, is that they just reveal information rather than actually contributing to value directly: the signal is just a way to help reveal and sort abilities or qualities" (ECN 101: Principles of Economics).
Works Cited:
ECN 101: Principles of Economics Information Slide #13
Signaling is definitely seen in higher education although it slightly differs between that of a public and private institution. In private institutions it can be seen that costs tend to be higher when looking at costs, an individual be more inclined to take out higher loans to be looked at better and get a better job. This then demonstrates when applying for a job that you went through greater lengths to try and receive a better education. All in an effort to suggest to your employer that you have a better talent and skill for the job. Another factor is that when you look at the institutions in general, private institutions are on the smaller side with smaller classrooms and a student to faculty ratio closer to a public institution. This shows a connection between the students and professor, where the student acquires a more in-depth learning experience. So they would work better in an office environment and be able to connect with their employees.
ReplyDeletePublic higher education- The tuition of a school should not be a signal for the quality of the education you will get. Just because a private school has a higher tuition rate does not mean it is better than all public colleges. Even if the tuition is cheaper to go to a public college, if the person is of low ability and they find it difficult but they still succeed this could be a signal to that person. They would feel that if they could get through college then they are smart enough to get a good job. According to US News the best public colleges is University of California, Berkley. UC Berkley is ranked twentieth nationally, with colleges like Harvard, Yale and Columbia above it. If an employer was just taking into account where the potential employee graduated and the schools were UC Berkley and a private school that no one has heard of, the employer would choose the UC Berkley graduate because of the popularity not because of the other the other school was a private college. I think that popularity from word of mouth is a signal that people would listen to not whether the school was public or private.
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