Better education doesn't correlate strongly to economic mobility (but union membership does)

[AnthonyC]

@NovaeDeArx

You can major in whatever you like, I’m not deriding that! But there’s this thing where you kind of have to plan your life choices around what you want to get out of life. If you want to be artistically and creatively fulfilled, and ideally have a trust fund, then go liberal arts all the way! If you want to have financial security, try to angle for a job that’s highly compensated.

Now, there’s a totally separate discussion to be had about a basic income, and the need for one in a society that’s becoming increasingly automated

The thing is, your second point makes the preceding paragraph pretty much irrelevant to the original post. What is good economic advice for an individual can be totally irrelevant to a society. A world of 2x or 10x as many people with engineering degrees, or pre-med qualifications, etc. doesn’t mean there will be 2x or 10x as many jobs for those people to take (or twice as many med schools spots or residencies). Society may well be better off if there were - but that is not how the labor market works.