You can’t have one without the other.

Will schools be able to provide the level of education needed for American workers to keep up with the rapidly advancing technology of the modern economy? Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University, looks at the
challenge America faces to provide the level of education needed to produce workers capable of dealing with a dynamic, technologically advanced economy.

Why Is Income Inequality in America So Pronounced? Consider Education – New York Times

Cowen suggests that the rising inequality in Americans’ incomes is not because of some corrupt failure of capitalism, rather it’s a simple problem of supply and demand. The new economy demands high skilled, well-educated workers, and at the same time our schools system has failed to produce such workers. In places like Silicon Valley, firms are turning to India and China for high skilled workers today; not because of cheap wages, rather because these countries are producing workers equipped with the skills to maneuver the technologically dynamic workplace of the 21st century.

The result of America’s schools’ failure to prepare students for the demanding university programs required to compete in this high tech economy: wages for highly educated individuals with an education in a technical field are rising, while wages of the majority of high school and college graduates are stagnating or even declining. Simply stated, the 21st century economy requires workers with 21st century skills. The problem is, schools are simply not preparing children to excel in such a technologically driven economy. According to Cowen:

…the evidence suggests that when additional higher education becomes available, it offers returns in the range of 10 to 14 percent per year of college, at least for the first newcomers to enroll.

Nonetheless it will, sooner or later, become increasingly difficult to deliver the gains from college — not to mention postgraduate study — to the entire population. Technology is advancing faster than our ability to educate. So even if inequality declines today, it may well intensify in the future. Even if American education improves at every level, the largely not-for-profit educational sector may simply be less dynamic than the progress of new technologies.

A pessimistic view, perhaps, but the message seems clear enough. Technology and education must go hand in hand now and in the future if our students are to be prepared for a career in the dynamic, technology driven environment that is our 21st century economy.

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About the author:  Jason Welker teaches International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement Economics at Zurich International School in Switzerland. In addition to publishing various online resources for economics students and teachers, Jason developed the online version of the Economics course for the IB and is has authored two Economics textbooks: Pearson Baccalaureate’s Economics for the IB Diploma and REA’s AP Macroeconomics Crash Course. Jason is a native of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and is a passionate adventurer, who considers himself a skier / mountain biker who teaches Economics in his free time. He and his wife keep a ski chalet in the mountains of Northern Idaho, which now that they live in the Swiss Alps gets far too little use. Read more posts by this author

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