The Primacy of Signaling in Education

Education primarily functions as a signaling mechanism rather than as a significant form of human capital development. Brian Kaplan argues that a substantial portion of the value derived from education comes from how it signals an individual's employability to employers. As a result, the useful skills imparted in educational settings often play a secondary role compared to the signaling functions of degrees and grades. This notion challenges the widely accepted belief that educational curricula are designed to provide essential job skills, suggesting that they often bear little relevance to real-world job performance.