Introduction
CHAPTER 1 The Magic of Education
CHAPTER 2 The Puzzle Is Real: The Ubiquity of Useless Education
CHAPTER 3 The Puzzle Is Real: The Handsome Rewards of Useless Education
CHAPTER 4 The Signs of Signaling: In Case You’re Still Not Convinced
CHAPTER 5 Who Cares If It’s Signaling? The Selfish Return to Education
CHAPTER 6 We Care If It’s Signaling: The Social Return to Education
CHAPTER 7 The White Elephant in the Room: We Need Lots Less Education
CHAPTER 8 1 > 0: We Need More Vocational Education
CHAPTER 9 Nourishing Mother Is Education Good for the Soul?
CHAPTER 10 Five Chats on Education and Enlightenment
Conclusion

Despite being immensely popular--and immensely lucrative-education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity-in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.