<p>This article says one possible reason for the decrease in income inequality in Latin America is that the rise of new, inferior universities has diminished the financial returns to college education as an investment …</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/business/economy/income-gap-shrinks-in-chile-for-better-or-worse.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/business/economy/income-gap-shrinks-in-chile-for-better-or-worse.html</a></p>
<p>The Soviet Union did away with income inequality; everyone was equally poor-- except of course for the elite who ran things because, of course, some animals were more equal than others.</p>
<p>Or increase for-profit colleges and let the free-market reign.</p>
<p>Working fine in Cuba. Doctors with years of experience make the same salary as bricklayers. (not that there’s anything wrong with being a bricklayer. But it does provide a disincentive for a talented kid to want to become a doctor).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Regarding doing away with income inequality…that’s what the Soviets and other Combloc nations would want us and everyone else to believe. However, things like dachas, vacation homes, and special shops with imported goods from the free world for Apparachiks, party bureaucrats, and their friends tend to get in the way of that illusion. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that even most avowed Communist nations like the once mighty USSR did not have a free-for-all regarding college access as seems to be assumed by some here. If anything, there was academic tracking in ways many of the loopy activists who introduced open-admissions to the CUNY system in 1969 and attempted to shutter gifted/public magnet high schools like the one I attended around the same period would find abhorrent if such tracking was even proposed in the US. </p>
<p>The only exception to this rule was Mainland China during the height of the Cultural Revolution…which effectively shut down the entire educational and research infrastructure for a decade and is a key factor in why school/college entrance exams were reintroduced and defended by many in that generation and older. </p>
<p>In the situation described in the article, it may be more that there were relatively few universities, so that the small number of graduates commanded large pay premiums compared to those without university education. Increasing the number of graduates at universities (whether inferior or not) should have obvious effects on the labor market for graduates, reducing the pay premium for a bachelor’s degree, but distributing the increased pay more widely among the population, reducing income inequality.</p>
<p>It’s amazing how quickly an article about income inequality in Latin America morphed into yet another
retelling of CUNY-in-the-60s and public magnets in NYC. I think this is a new record, cobrat. </p>
<p><a href=“Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality - The Atlantic”>Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality - The Atlantic;
<p>I am just intrigued by the suggestion in the original article that college education – of a certain kind and quality – can actually serve as a path to downward mobility for the well-to-do, so that as such education becomes more widely available, income inequality is reduced.</p>
<p>Income inequality can also be reduced if the lower and middle income people experience increased income, while the upper income people continue to have the same income, or even increased (by lesser amount) income.</p>
<p>Ancient Roman emperors simply murdered the wealthy, confiscated their assets, and redistributed the booty as bribes, bread & circuses. Very efficient and made for good public entertainment in the Coliseum. </p>