Economic Well-Being: Wider Ed

A country's strength and resilience is built upon human capacity. As stewards of the U.S. educational system and lifelong learning, we need to embrace and mobilize wider ed for ourselves, our children, our employees, and the country.

We are at a perfect moment to do this. First, student loan forgiveness initiatives are stalled. Second, we have too few electricians, plumbers, health care workers, and mechanics in the pipeline. Third, community volunteerism in rural communities who find themselves newly populated by outmigration from cities has declined. Fourth, COVID and remote schooling made a mess of the maturation of adolescents. Fifth, there is a shift from globalization to nationalism.

Going forward, in elementary, middle, and secondary education, there must be requisite education for all students about occupations, household budgeting, time value of money, and budgetary assumptions taking into consideration debt undertaken for education. Show students the many different ways they can find meaning in the work they can do. Help them develop an appreciation for how all roles matter in society.

In the moment, allow those who incurred student debt, up to a certain dollar amount for a fixed period of time, to take a tax deduction for payment of the principal and interest on that debt. Allow employers to pay bonuses not subject to Social Security or taxation, again up to a certain amount, for the specific purpose of student loan repayment. If an individual cannot repay, permit them to file for a special type of bankruptcy -- one that cannot be used against them when seeking employment or housing.

Put "citizenship" / community service and/or employment requirements in place for high school students and tie "higher educational savings accounts" to their completion -- help all students while in high school to build a "nest egg" to offset the expense of higher education. This requirement should be for all students, irrespective of how involved they are in extra-curriculars that look good on college applications.

Extend the school day and do remedial education for all students that is pertinent to the in-classroom skills they ended up missing out on during remote education. To prepare a cadre of "affiliated teachers" you will need to instruct the "affiliated teachers." Offer those with high levels of student debt a "pay down through public service program" for being an affiliated teacher. Employers could make use of "flex time" to free up a couple of hours for employees to be an affiliated teacher. It could translate into supervisory skill development for those employees. This will likely result in educational adjustments if a disconnect is revealed between what we teach, how it is taught, and what people do with their educations.

Finally, put in place a required "citizenship," "geography," and "Founding fathers/Abraham Lincoln through the Industrial Revolution/20th/21st century American history" "world events" course. Role play how bills become laws. Role play the "horse-trading" conversations that occur in the hallways of government. The best defense against specious arguments and pablum is making the complexity of historical evolution and societal evolution tractable through role playing. If this is the YouTube, TikTok generation, then scriptwriters and actors they shall be. Our self-discipline is to require that they look it up in credible sources and that we ourselves have refreshed our understanding of historical and societal evolution.

In sum, stop emphasizing success of the pre-K to 12 educational system as a function of how many students go to 4-year elite institutions and pass multiple AP exams. Success might be measured as a function of "how little money" can be spent to obtain societally-valued outcomes. Yes, we need surgeons. I'm not so sure about how many "money movers" we need. But all of us rely on a working toilet, running water and electricity and this is especially the case when natural and geopolitical disasters occur.

Postscript: For my fellow academics who, like me, may be intrigued by the "Putting the Worker Front and Center" theme of the 2023 Academy of Management meetings.

Can you be a frame-breaker? Here's the academic argument for being an agent of societal change through wider ed: Too much role differentiation and specialization in human capacity makes for a brittle society when disruptions occur. If you agree that we are in a time where wider ed can punctuate equilibrium and disrupt structural hysteresis, what will you do?