[eru]

Education has a negative impact on society, because we are forcing young people to waste years of their lives that they often neither enjoy nor do those years make them more productive. They don't get those years back, and even pay dearly for that privilege.

Individuals benefit from getting more education, but only in the sense of getting ahead in a signalling.

Perhaps an analogy helps: an individual tree benefits from growing taller than its neighbours, but the 'society' of trees scarcely gains any net benefit from that arms race.

Research is an entirely different topic that I didn't want to broach here.

For the sake of argument, let's accept that research is good for society. But we could get plenty of research without having to cross-subsidize it via education spending.

[RugnirViking]

Do I understand correctly that you're making the argument that education is zero-sum? That's surprising to me, I feel like I have gotten a lot out of my education. In fact I would say that while most people agree that education system isnt perfect, we do gain quite a lot from a society where for example as a baseline everyone can read and write, and at a more advanced level understand at least the basics of other people's jobs.

At a university level, I can't say I have studied every course or "type" of education, but it would be really surprising to me if there were any that gave nothing at all to their students