Affirming the financial rewards of education often confuses critics of the signaling model. Isn’t it contradictory to claim the market rewards irrelevant education? No; a thousand times no. The signaling model’s whole purpose is to explain why education raises income more than job skills. Unless education has a larger effect on income than on job skills, there’s nothing for the model to explain. The case for the signaling model is strongest if students learn zero in school—and employers treat graduates like kings.
