I’m a data scientist in the private sector, with an education in economics. My professors included the chair at the AEI and cabinet members of the Reagan presidency. Academia is no smarter now—in fact, the data indicates to the contrary. Not only are years of education returning less than ever before, but a significant minority of scholars are unable to replicate or meaningfully understand the work of their peers according to recent research.
Don’t buy into *their* nonsense. Academia is a business—both for education and for R&D. Just because they say they’re brilliant—doesn’t mean they are.
The majority of our most valuable R&D comes from the private sector—not from academia. Companies like AT&T, Lockheed Martin, SpacEx, Google, General Dynamics, Bechtel, Boeing, Intel, Sony, IBM, Raytheon, and the working-class scientists they employ are the people who’ve made all of the strides in computing, aerospace, energy, agriculture and telecommunications. It isn’t your college professor.
Sure telecommunications has boosted our ability to collaborate and exchange information overall, increasing human and technological development. But the working class is often more valuable in a free market—take tradesmen and engineers for example—than most in academia. Money generally doesn’t lie.
