Do you need to cook something vaguely like thanksgiving? Or is it okay if everyone punts on cooking and you order Chinese food instead?

India has more English speakers than Canada, the UK, and Australia combined. It also has *ten times* the population of those three countries combined. It is over 15% of the total world population. Almost every country is miniscule compared to India.

Canada isn't exactly what you would call a "rural" country in the way I grew up thinking about it. This is a population map of Canada. You see that white area? That's not mostly not "rural," that's mostly the forest (and wildlife, and mountains). Only about 10% of Canada's population lives there.

One thing to remember about Canada is that if you pick a random place in Canada you'll wind up in a place with almost no people. But if you pick a random person in Canada, there is a decent chance the person lives pretty close to a place like this:

This is obviously not a good person

Honestly? We are way more worried about the situation with the undergrads.

I am pretty sure if you had any ideas on what content would constitute a "beginner" class that's what I would probably do. My gut instinct says "the first 8 chapters" but my gut instinct is probably wrong.

I don't have ideas but I have been idly thinking about how I would teach a course using your text (which would be a minimum of 5 years off). But I'm pretty sure none of my students, undergrad or grad, would be able to complete the whole text.

That would imply university education isn't leveling cultural capital (makes sense) and that passing down academic resources is contingent on not getting squeezed in the labor market queue (so the competition is happening in a different way than I expected). 3/3

But what you and your coauthors found (correct me if I am wrong) is that there are multiple small effects (selection on literary / book ownership habits, underemployment by occupation) that add up to one bigger effect. 2/3

My default theory at this point is that educational expansion is going to lead to a crowded queue, and that a university degree loses some of its edge as a result. That's what I have found. But since test scores aren't necessarily a queue I would have expected a smaller effect. 1/3

I kind of wanted to do a study like this before the pandemic hit and everyone's lives went to hell and I decided I needed to focus elsewhere. I'm glad someone did it so I can cite it.

That's interesting, I would have expected parents to "find a way" but it certainly fits broadly with the argument that when everyone gets education level X then education level X ceases to distinguish people.