The Aims of Education Address By Andrew Abbott September 26, 2002 elcome to the University of the future will assume you’re good, no in the big nationwide studies, most of that who is a farmer and two who are doctors. Chicago.” matter what you do or how you do while effect comes through the connection be- So overall there is some slight evidence W Of the dozens of persons you are here. And of course we know, tween major and occupation. For the real of tracks towards particular occupations who will say that to you during this orien- pretty certainly, that having gotten in you variable driving worldly success—as all of from particular concentrations, but really tation week, I am the only one who will will graduate. Colleges compete in part by you know perfectly well—the one that the news is the reverse. The glass is not so keep on talking for another sixty minutes having high retention rates, and so it is in shapes income more than anything else, is much one-third full as two-thirds empty. after saying it. I imagine that you have the college’s very strong interest to make occupation. Occupation and major are Remember that only 40 percent of the heard few such orations before and that sure you graduate, whether you learn any- fairly strongly associated within the broad biology majors became doctors. And, more will you will hear few hereafter. A full- thing or not. categories of nationwide data. But within important, remember that our alumni’s length, formal talk on a set topic is a rather All of this tells me that nearly everyone the narrow range of occupation and achieve- experience shows very plainly that no path- nineteenth-century kind of thing to do. in this room will end up, twenty years from ment that we have at the University of way from major to occupation is ruled out. Even at the University of Chicago, this is now, in the top quarter of the American Chicago, there is really no strong relation The looseness of the connection between the only such oration you will get. You will income distribution. I have surveyed those between what you study and your occupa- curriculum and career is even more obvious be glad to know that when you graduate who graduated from this school in 1975— tion in later life. when seen the other way, from the point of four years hence, the speaker is asked to a group considerably less privileged by Here is some data on a 10 percent ran- view of the occupations. Our largest group speak for exactly thirteen and one-half ancestry than yourselves—and can tell you dom sample of Chicago alumni from the was lawyers—12 percent of my survey re- minutes. that their median personal income is about last twenty years. Take the mathematics spondents. Of the lawyers, 16 percent came It’s no easier for me. This is only the five times the national median, and their concentrators: 20 percent software devel- from economics; 15 percent from political third or fourth such oration that I’ve given median household income is at about the opment and support, 14 percent college science; 12 percent from history; 7 percent in my life. And you’re not an easy audience. ninety-third percentile of the nation’s in- professors, 10 percent in banking and fi- each from philosophy, English, and psy- You’re preoccupied with new roommates, come distribution. That’s where you are nance, 7 percent secondary or elementary chology; and 5 percent from public policy. placement tests, and “Chicago Life meet- headed. And let me tell you that in the eyes teachers, and 7 percent in nonacademic There was at least one lawyer from each of ings” numbers one through five. Your of the students starting college this fall at research; the rest are scattered. Physics the following: anthropology, art and de- minds are weary with the endless junk Chicago State University five miles south of concentrators are similar, but more of them sign, art history, biology, chemistry, East we’ve given you to read. Your bodies are here or in the eyes of the adults going to are engineers and fewer are bankers. Biol- Asian languages and civilizations, funda- aglow with adrenalin, serotonin, and the endless night classes at DePaul University ogy produces 40 percent doctors, 16 per- mentals, general studies in the humanities, various endorphins, not to mention the downtown, that expectation is an expecta- cent professors, 11 percent nonacademic geography, geophysical sciences, Germanic more urgent excitements of estrogen and tion of extravagant success. As far as the researchers, and the other third scattered. languages and literatures, mathematics, testosterone. And you are in a very diverse nationwide success game is concerned, Obviously, there are a number of seeming physics, religion and humanities, Romance set of moods. Some of you are eager to hear there’s no reason for you to study here. The pathways here. All the science concentra- languages and literatures, Russian and other what I have to say. Some of you can’t wait game is already over. You’ve already won. tions lead to professorships and nonaca- Slavic languages and literatures, and soci- till it’s over. Some of you are watching the Now many of you, of course, don’t give demic research. And biology and chemistry ology. You get the point. There is abso- noisy dude whisper loudly two rows in a damn about those other students—young often lead to medicine. But there are also lutely no concentration from which you front of you. Some of you are sensing the people and adults struggling to move up a many diversions from those pathways. cannot become a lawyer. aspiration and grandeur expressed by this few notches in the middle class. You’re We’ve got a biology concentrator who is What about doctors, 9 percent of the Gothic building. Some of you are thinking interested in living in Winnetka rather than now a writer, another who is now a musi- sample? These are much more concentrated, that I, the speaker, have a very big nose. In Downers Grove. You may want to summer cian. We’ve got two mathematicians who because of the prerequisites of medical short, you’re a diverse lot and I’m a begin- in the Hamptons rather than on Fire Island. are now lawyers, and a physics concentra- schools. Sixty percent of the doctors came ning orator and we have an hour together Your idea of a good vacation may be a hotel tor who is now a psychotherapist. from the biology concentration and 17 to think about the aims of education. Let’s in Paris and visits to the Musée d’Orsay Take the social sciences. Economics con- percent from chemistry. However, there do it. instead of a resort in Orlando and visits to centrators—this is today identified as over- was at least one doctor each from anthro- It is important that you develop some Disney World. “Surely,” you tell me, “my whelmingly the most careerist major—are pology, classics, English (four of them, in personal aims of education because there is studies at the University of Chicago will 24 percent in banking and finance, 15 fact), history and philosophy of science, quite a strong case to be made that, given have a big impact on those kinds of things. percent in business consulting, 14 percent ideas and methods, mathematics, music, who you are and where you are, there is no Surely they will determine whether I’m in lawyers, 10 percent in business administra- philosophy, psychology, public policy, and particular necessity for you to study any- the ninety-fourth or the ninety-ninth per- tion or sales, 7 percent in computers, and Romance languages and literatures. While thing for the next four years. There are centile of income. Getting a fine higher the other 30 percent scattered. Historians the main pathway to medicine is obvious, it three basic reasons for that. They are rea- education may not affect my gross chances are often lawyers (24 percent) and second- is by no means the only way in. sons that I think a growing number of of worldly success, but surely they affect ary teachers (15 percent), but the other 60 The other large group among alumni is students at elite American colleges suspect, my detailed ones.” percent are all over the map. Political scien- in banking and finance (also about 10 at least from what I am seeing in my own On the contrary. I have to tell you that tists have 24 percent lawyers, 7 percent percent). Of these, 40 percent came from classroom. So let’s be frank about them. there’s no real evidence in favor of this each professors and government adminis- economics, 8 percent from psychology, 7 First, as far as worldly success is con- second reason to get an education, and trators, and perhaps 20 percent in the vari- percent from political science, 7 percent cerned, you’ve already got it. That your there’s a good deal of evidence against it. In ous business occupations; the rest are from English, 6 percent from mathematics, future income will be huge and your future the first place, all serious studies show that scattered. Psychologists, surprisingly, are 5 percent from public policy, and 4 percent work prestigious and honored can easily be while college-level factors like prestige and also about 20 percent in the various busi- from history. Again there is a dominant predicted from the simple fact that you got selectivity have some independent effect on ness occupations, 11 percent lawyers, and route in, but there are many routes beside into an elite college.