Danny Crichton

My Stanford friend Andrew Linford spent the last year studying abroad in Poland, India, France, South Africa, United Kingdom and Japan. Be sure to check out his blog at http://www.discoveringsociety.info/ - Danny Crichton

"The Chinese are taking over the world. We should all just learn Chinese." Have you ever heard a statement like this one? Should we all just learn Chinese for this reason? Learning a foreign language takes time and commitment. Without both together, you will not be able to fully learn a language. So, when does it actually make sense to put in the time and effort, and when does it pay off?

As Americans, we are incredibly lucky to learn the lingua franca of the world as a primary language of the country, enabling us to communicate with many people globally without the effort to learn a second (or even third language). But the facility by which we can communicate with others does present a barrier to Americans, as it presents a situation in which language learning can seem particularly useless. Although Spanish may be a very important language, it is nowhere as important as English. However, all high schools and many colleges do require that we spend time learning a foreign language in order to graduate. Considering how much can be learned in one year of classes at a high school, does that extra year of a foreign language make sense in terms of opportunity cost?

The following are guiding principals I have come up with to decide when an American taking the time to learn a foreign language makes sense:

1. Your family speaks that language. For me, it makes complete sense to me that one should really be able to speak with all close family members at least decently well in

Human beings have a tendency to hold onto perceptions far longer than evidence allows. This cognitive bias infects much of our decision-making in politics and in life. Once we learn something, we tend to hold on to that knowledge, even when the knowledge itself has changed. This is why professors who learn their field in the 1970s and 1980s can find it difficult to update their classes with the most recent advances. In politics, policy change can be wrenching precisely because the best course of action is different than a politician's previous experience.

Today, most people's perception of law school is vastly out-of-date. Once the ticket to the upper middle class and prestigious careers in cosmopolitan cities, a legal education is increasingly entering a grey zone: for some it can be helpful, but for too many, there is a mismatch between desires and reality. This post analyzes the current trends.

Law School Economics

Understanding the changes that have happened to the legal career path requires a basic understanding of law school economics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there are 759,200 lawyers in the United States in 2008, and that growth should be around 13% over the next ten years, in line with the general growth in employment for the nation.

The number of graduates of law schools has increased in recent years as well, even over the highs of the late 1990s. According to the American Bar Association, in 1999-2000 there were 39,071 law school graduates compared to 43,588 in 2008, a growth rate of about 11.5%. Thus, the growth in the number of graduates is lower than the growth in the number of positions.

What is the problem then? Let's look at those numbers again. The

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Americans owe some $826.5 billion in revolving credit, according to June 2010 figures from the Federal Reserve. (Most of revolving credit is credit-card debt.) Student loans outstanding today - both federal and private - total some $829.785 billion, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com."

Unfortunately, much of that debt goes to programs that fail to provide employment for their graduates (see recent stories of for-profit universities and the controversy surrounding income versus debt levels).

It is also important to note that student loan debt paralyzes recent graduates from taking risks in their early 20s. America needs more of its bright students to undertake entrepreneurial activities, but it is difficult to see how they will do so given the levels of debt they take on. A re-envisioning of this entire system seems well overdue.

As the economic malaise continues for America and much of the world, political leaders continue to drive their nations to more pleasant pastures of high-growth industries. Unsurprisingly, these industries tend to be knowledge-intensive and require a deep reservoir of human capital. Creating new products and building fancy new widgets requires knowledge, and that knowledge comes directly from a strong and dynamic education system.

On August 8 and 9, two speeches illustrate the common goals -- yet divergent success -- in accomplishing this mission.

August 8 was Singapore's National Day, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivered a short address targeting increased investment in education as a chief priority of his government.

"Our goal is for all Singaporeans to enjoy the fruits of growth. When Singapore prospers, you will benefit from many government programmes: better designed HDB estates, higher quality schools and hospitals, more MRT lines and new places for recreation. But each one of us has to make the effort. Every student must be keen to learn and go as far as you can. Every worker must master the knowhow and skills to be productive and competitive. Every manager must train and motivate his staff to maximise their contribution and potential. Only then can Singaporeans do the better jobs that our economy will create, and enjoy higher incomes, brighter opportunities, and more fulfilling lives."

On August 9, President Barack Obama gave a lengthy address at the University of Texas-Austin in which he laid out his higher education agenda. His entire speech can be read here on the White House website.

A pull-quote:

"Now, when I talk about education, people say, well, you know what, right now we're going through this tough time. We've emerged from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

As a regular commentator on higher education, I have covered a wide range of issues that currently plague the American university system. While the system certainly has its problems, it by and large remains one of the crown jewels of the American economy.

Treatises attacking the university system are not new, and a new book to be released next week, Higher Education?, is running over well-trodden ground. As part of the book's publicity campaign, the authors were interviewed by the Atlantic on some of their findings. You can read the interview here. My initial conclusion: the myopia in this article is breathtaking. Let me go through all of my favorite parts:

"Schools get status by bringing on professors who are star researchers, star scholars. That's all we really know about Caltech or MIT or Stanford. We don't really know about the quality of undergraduate teaching at any of these places. And it's the students who suffer."

I know a little about the quality of undergraduate teaching at top schools since I attend one. As with any people-oriented enterprise, there is inconsistency in the quality of teaching at Stanford University. No university is immune to this basic law of human performance. However, professors here are by and large excellent teachers. In fact, it is difficult for me to identify any professor who I felt over-prioritized their research instead of their teaching (and considering that we are on the quarter system, that is a lot of professors). Have there been classes that I avoided because the professor had a bad reputation? Absolutely. I do not feel suffering because I had to do a little research to pick my classes.

As for the "star scholar" argument, I like having academic stars teaching

David Brooks just wrote in the New York Times an interesting op-ed about his "magic green jacket" and the current political situation facing Democrats and President Obama. One of the suggestions he mentioned in the penultimate paragraph is to create "a new wave of regional innovation clusters" that would presumably pull the economy out of the recession and renew the lease on the middle class lifestyle.

While a minor part of the overall piece, I am constantly surprised at the hubris that of those who think that innovation is something that can be legislated. Silicon Valley remains the premier research region in the United States and arguably the world. Thousands of new immigrants flock to the region every year, and thousands of new businesses and start-ups begin (and end) in the never-ending tumult of Silicon Valley's fast-paced ecosystem.

Surprisingly, the region has retained its lead in research despite competition from several other regions, some with incredibly strong backing from the government. These regions include the Route 128 corridor in Massachusetts, the Research Triangle in North Carolina and the Baltimore/Washington D.C. corridor. While the approaches have been both centralized and decentralized, no area in the country has yet arrived at the formula to duplicate Silicon Valley's success.

Analysts often point to the first-mover problem. Silicon Valley has been at the forefront of technology for so long that people with ideas come to the region to bring them to fruition. A notable recent example is Mark Zuckerberg, who created Facebook in his Harvard dormitory before moving it to Palo Alto to launch the company's growth.

However, that does not explain the region's monopoly on the high-tech sector. Costs in the region for both workers and businesses

I just finished reading the Big Squeeze by Steven Greenhouse, a book which provides vignettes of middle class workers while providing analysis of the issues facing the 21st century American economy. The book provided few original insights - it is not like employment trends has been missed by major political commentators. However, it did provide a concise explanation of the problems, and that in itself is useful.

There are a couple of large themes that can be quickly taken away. First, middle class jobs are increasingly scarce, and there is little reason to believe that the situation is going to improve. Second, businesses are going to continue to perceive their workers as "costs" rather than assets, and work hard to drive those costs down as hard as possible. Third, the types of jobs that are disappearing have steadily moved up the income chart - now even the legal work of top law firms is being outsourced, leaving top law school grads in a lurch. Finally, critical elements in the social mobility ladder of the United States have disappeared, preventing those from the lowest rungs from moving themselves up.

These themes have been clear for at least two decades. What I think is the most interesting question, one rarely raised by this book genre, is where does this take the American economy, and what does that mean for different kinds of workers?

One of my favorite measures of income inequality is the Gini coefficient, which measures how extreme inequality is in a certain population between 0 (no inequality) to 1 (maximum inequality). America had an all-time low during the early 1970s, and since then, the number has steadily risen and is unlikely to slow down. Other statistics are available, and the Big Squeeze provides dozens to show the increasing gap

The perhaps not-so-startling win of Spain at the World Cup in South Africa has partially obscured a far more interesting victory: a successful cup in the world's supposed basket case continent. Despite the doom and gloom from opinion leaders that the World Cup would be marred by crime, instability and corruption, South Africa appears to have been successful in producing a quality tournament without negative news.

These good feelings were further boosted by a paper released by McKinsey and Co. two weeks ago showing that economic growth on the continent is expected to be robust. Rather than just a passing moment, this growth is sustainable: a significant portion comes from knowledge-based industries and not just from expensive raw resources. Economic integration is also looking up: five African nations have recently started a new economic union that should further increase trade.

This is good for the continent, and it has attracted the attention of major economic superpowers. China, which has had a strong African plan for several years now, has been funneling billions of dollars of investments to the continent, building up infrastructure projects and educational institutions.

This investment is not without critics. Former Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Moisés Naím talked about the issue of Rogue Aid from countries like China and Saudi Arabia several years ago. Essentially, these countries provide billions of dollars of investment while demanding few improvements in governance. It is aid without morality, and it is making it difficult for Western governments to compete with aid programs that shutter under the weight of accountability requirements.

China, of course, is not spending out of generosity, but rather as a means to ensure the long-term stability of its economic engine by securing critical resources. The problem, today and tomorrow, is that the United