1. Devon Bull
ECON 765
Critical Essay 3
Rosenbloom
The Human Capital Century
The twentieth century experienced an incredible shift in demand for advanced
education in the working masses. This was driven by a changing environment which included
the use of higher learning skills like science and mathematics in the business world. World
powers like the United States, England, and Germany etc. all began the twentieth century with
relatively the same fraction of population having received advanced schooling. However, the
United States experienced a period of explosive growth in this area that would take decades for
the other countries to achieve. The author, Claudia Goldin, seeks to examine what drove this
massive change and why it took other countries much longer to accomplish this. Goldin also
attempts to compare her findings with our educational systemtoday.
Goldin describes the twentieth century as the “Human Capital Century”. This is because
“for the first time in history the schooling of the masses at the secondary and higher levels was
perceived to enhance economic production” (pg. 1). According to Goldin this was a large step
away from previous thinking by world leaders who had an almost exclusive focus on technology
and physical capital. Where countries had previously studied each other’s manufacturing
techniques and technologies they now turned their attention to studying each other’s

2. education systems. Many countries specifically began to study the American educational
system because of its sudden and massive success.
To examine the American educational system Goldin first identifies what she describes
as “virtues” that come from basic “democratic and egalitarian principles that influenced the
education system” (pg. 3). These virtues are things like public funding, a secular government,
gender neutrality, etc. Around 1900 the American education system underwent fundamental
changes to create a large scale formal education systemfor the masses. According to Goldin,
the environment of the U.S. promoted both the possibility of such a system because of its
virtues. These virtues when paired with the need for such a systemfrom the business world
brought these forces together to create the fundamental changes to the American education
system.
Goldwin finds that around the turn of the century the American style of education
began to become more practical, scientifically oriented, and with an emphasis of having a
variety of easily transferable skills. A “new” type of economy was driving demand for these
changes away from a classicaleducation towards specialization, specifically in the sciences.
Thus, Goldwin finds the return on investment of attending secondary school increases
significantly during this period. Using unique data from Iowa we find that an additional year in
high school in Iowa “added more than eleven percent to the income of the individual”. These
returns to the individual are even more powerful when we consider that access to high schools
dramatically increased during the time period.

3. Goldwin describes this jump in access to education as the “High School Movement”.
Essentially it can be boiled down to this: most growth in secondary school enrollment is due to
the creation of high schools where none had previously existed. We see this because
“secondary school enrollment increased rapidly after 1910” which Goldwin asserts is when
many new high schools were created (pg. 18). The combination of increased incentives and
easier access fueled a large jump in enrollment that would take many countries decades to
achieve.
Goldwin does a good job at examining what factors caused the rapid increase in
enrollment in the American education system as compared with other world powers of the
time. However, her emphasis on differences in the European style of educational systems and
what role they played in their enrollment levels in questionable. The Europeans had central
systems of education that allowed for students to receive a uniform education. Goldwin
attempts to argue that centralized systems are detrimental to a country’s education system. I
strongly disagree with this because a centralized system should theoretically allow for more
rapid iterations to adapt to changes in the demand side. This isn’t to say there weren’t aspects
of European society that negatively affected their academic enrollment rate when compared
with American society.
When Goldin first discusses the virtues of American society she offers little empirical
evidence to support these claims. However, her analysis of them clearly indicate that what she
describes as virtues definitely impact enrollment rates, especially when compared with Europe.
While these factors like the so called virtues can’t be thrown aside as irrelevant it seems clear
to me that access to secondary education was the critical element in raising enrollment rates.

4. Access to education arguably played the most important role in increasing the amount of the
population that attended secondary school. Goldwin mentions that most of the increased
enrollment rates are directly attributed to the creation of new high schools. I believe this to be
one of the key findings from Goldwin’s work, however, that isn’t to say we can apply her work
to the present day as she attempts to.
Goldwin compares the historical factors that drove academic enrollment with our
modern education systemand says that some of these “virtues” have now become “vices”.
There is one fundamental issue with her assertions. I would argue that almost every subject
explored by Goldwin is virtually irrelevant in terms of our education system today. She doesn’t
analyze which education systems produced a more intelligent general public. Goldwin is simply
comparing enrollment rates among different countries. Unfortunately there are two main
forces that drove this enrollment increase: access to education and return on investment in
terms of jobs and income. Goldwin’s work is interesting and provides a detailed look into what
caused the U.S. become a world leader in education. However we must look elsewhere if we
are to improve our current education system.